"The Silent Treatment"

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I. Map

Jordan and Iraq. 2006 John Emerson

II. Executive Summary

Since the start of the 2003 war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis have fled their country, seeking refuge in bordering countries. About
one million are split evenly between Jordan
and Syria, while Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
have barred all Iraqis from entering and few are known to have sought refuge in
Iran or Turkey. Countries within the
region, as well as the larger international community, have largely ignored the
presence and the needs of Iraqi refugees. This report focuses on the status and
experience of Iraqis in Jordan
not because Jordan has had a
unique record in mistreating them; on the contrary, it and Syria have been the most generous
in allowing Iraqis to enter and remain. Rather, Jordan serves as a case study to
highlight-and to seek to remedy-the plight of Iraqi refugees, a shared
responsibility of Jordan, neighboring countries, and the international
community.

Although it has historically been among the most welcoming
countries in the world toward refugees, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan today
ignores the existence of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, does not
address their needs for protection, and has not asked for international
assistance on their behalf. It is a policy that can best be characterized as
"the silent treatment."

Human Rights Watch regards the vast majority of Iraqi
nationals in Jordan as "de facto refugees"-people who have fled conditions of
generalized violence and persecution, who are in need of international
protection and who face objective conditions of danger in their country, even
if they have not registered asylum claims or had those claims adjudicated and
been officially recognized as refugees by either the Government of Jordan or
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). De facto refugees in
Jordan
come from all walks of life and diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds. Both
Sunnis and Shi`a have sought refuge in Jordan, as have non-Muslim
minorities. De facto refugees include people who fled during the Saddam Hussein
era and who still fear return, as well as people who newly arrive at the
border. Some are threatened as collaborators with the Americans, while others
are threatened for their alleged associations with the Ba`thist Party that
ruled Iraq
under Saddam Hussein. They represent people who flee both generalized violence
as well as targeted persecution, including ethnic cleansing.

Yet Jordan
treats Iraqis fleeing violence inside Iraq as temporary visitors, not
refugees. Because Jordan has made renewal of their visas so difficult that most
Iraqis quickly lose their legal status, most Iraqis are left to fend for
themselves, living in the shadows, fearful, and subject to exploitation.
Although UNHCR declared a "temporary protection regime" (TPR), the Jordanian
government accurately insists that it never agreed to it. Of greatest concern, Jordan
has increasingly subjected Iraqis to deportation or refusal at the border. Given
the present level of violence and human rights abuses in Iraq, such returns and rejections
appear in many cases to constitute refoulement,
the forced return of refugees, a violation of international customary law.

A Jordanian official encapsulated the government's
nonexistent Iraqi refugee policy when he told Human Rights Watch that Jordan was not facing a refugee problem, but
rather one of "illegal immigration, no different from what the United States
faces with Mexicans." This statement consciously ignores the carnage and abuse
raging next door that compels Iraqis to seek refuge in Jordan. Most Iraqis are not coming
to Jordan
to seek economic opportunity, but rather to escape brutality and save their
lives.

Palestinian refugees and Iranian Kurdish refugees who fled
from Iraq face uniquely
difficult situations in Jordan.
Both groups lived for decades in Iraq without having integrated into
Iraqi society, and found themselves especially vulnerable after the fall of
Saddam Hussein. Although UNHCR recognizes the Palestinians and Iranian Kurds as
refugees, they are restricted to a remote and desolate place where their lives
are, at best, in limbo. A group of Iranian Kurds stranded at the border
crossing are on the edge of a war zone, and in actual danger. By contrast,
while UNHCR does not formally recognize the de facto Iraqi refugees in Jordan,
the government does not restrict their movement or confine them to camps.

In late 2002 and early 2003, as the United States and its allies prepared to invade Iraq, Jordan
initially vowed to close its borders to refugees fleeing Iraq. In practice, though, as
Iraqis began to seek refuge from the escalating conflict, Jordan allowed them
to enter the kingdom on 30-day visas issued at the border-as it had for about a
quarter million Iraqis who left Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era to escape
repression and the effects of economic sanctions. As it did before the war,
Jordanian authorities looked the other way after April 2003 when Iraqis
overstayed their visas, demonstrating considerable leniency in enforcing
immigration laws.

Jordanian hospitality and tolerance toward Iraqis changed,
however, after November 2005, when three Iraqi nationals killed 60 people by
setting off bombs in three large hotels in Amman. Since the hotel bombings, Jordanian
officials have stepped up immigration enforcement: turning away large numbers
of Iraqis seeking entry at the border, making it harder for Iraqis inside
Jordan to renew their visas and remain in legal status, and arresting Iraqis
for working or residing illegally once they lose their legal right to remain in
the country. As a result, Iraqis who manage to enter Jordan
quickly lose their legal status and begin accruing fines of 1.5 Jordanian
dinars (JD, equal to US$2) for each day that they remain in Jordan after their visas expire. For
refugees with nowhere to go and limited sources of income, this quickly adds up
to enormous sums that they are unable to pay. If the Jordanian police apprehend
Iraqis who cannot pay the accumulated fines for overstaying their visas, the
police deport them and deny them re-entry to Jordan for five years.

While Human Rights Watch appreciates Ministry of Interior
(MOI) officials' assurances that they act according to humanitarian principles
and do not return people to persecution, their approach seems to be based on
personal exceptions rather than policy, and in practice has led to abuses,
including refoulement, the forced
return of refugees. Human Rights Watch
research documented cases of refoulement both of Iraqi asylum seekers
holding UNHCR cards and of de facto refugees who were not registered with UNHCR
but who expressed to the authorities their fear of return. In addition,
frequent travelers, such as taxi drivers, report to Human Rights Watch that
more Iraqis are turned away at the Jordan-Iraq border since the Amman bombings.

Living illegally in Jordan creates a pervasive climate
of anxiety among the Iraqi population. Without work authorization and with
depleted savings, many Iraqis become dependent on relatives outside the region
to send them money. Others sell their belongings or seek low-paying,
under-the-table work. Those who work illegally are prone to accepting
exploitative or marginal employment. They are often over-qualified for these
menial jobs, but earn less than Jordanians for the same work.

Iraqi children living in Jordan also face substantial
barriers to education. Although the government has not clearly and
categorically barred foreign children who do not possess residency permits from
attending school, its actions and pronouncements have resulted in the denial of
primary education for many Iraqi children. The timing and ambiguity of
announcements of changes in education policy have sown confusion and
uncertainty among Iraqis without residency permits and could be taken as a
deliberate attempt to deter them from enrolling their children in school.

Jordan
is not a party to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of
Refugees (Refugee Convention) or the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of
Refugees. It has never developed a domestic refugee law or a procedure for
adjudicating asylum claims, and UNHCR hardly fills the gap. In 2003, the UN
refugee agency initiated the temporary protection regime in Jordan and the surrounding region. Its
purpose was to prevent all Iraqis who registered with the refugee agency from
being deported to Iraq,
based on temporary conditions of generalized violence in their home country. According
to the TPR, UNHCR does not actually process registrants' asylum claims, but
rather provides them with "asylum seeker" cards, which are intended to ensure
access to territory and temporary protection from deportation, but not to
establish a refugee status per se or any rights to permanent residency in Jordan.

Yet UNHCR's temporary protection regime has failed to
provide protection to the majority of Iraqis living in Jordan. The agency has registered
only 17,000 Iraqis in Jordan
under its TPR, and provided them with "asylum seeker" cards. They represent a
tiny fraction of the potential refugees in the country who have fled
persecution, war, and generalized violence in Iraq. Moreover, even those who have
registered receive little protection because Jordan does not accept the
temporary protection regime and Jordanian officials refuse to recognize
UNHCR-issued asylum-seeker cards (other than to notify UNHCR when card holders
have been detained and to provide the agency access to conduct refugee status
determinations (RSDs) for such detainees).

In refusing to accept the temporary protection regime, the
government of Jordan
insists that UNHCR continue to operate according to a 1998 Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) under which the refugee agency is required to adjudicate
refugee claims and seek third-country resettlement for recognized refugees. However,
UNHCR has suspended processing of almost all newly registered Iraqi asylum
seekers both because it lacks the resources to adjudicate the enormous
potential number of Iraqi claims in Jordan and because it does not want to
engage in a procedure that could result in Iraqis being screened out and returned
to Iraq for failure to qualify as refugees according to the narrow persecution
standard in the Refugee Convention. Consequently, the refugee agency has only
recognized a miniscule number of refugees-22 in 2005. The vast majority of
Iraqis have neither registered as asylum seekers nor been recognized as
refugees, though many appear to be refugees in need of international
protection.

Historically, Jordan has been remarkably open to
people from the region fleeing persecution, first Palestinians, now Iraqis. Although
Jordan's historical generosity is now undergoing a severe challenge and its
attitude appears to be hardening, it still fares well relative to most of its
neighbors as one of the more tolerant countries in the region toward refugees. Most
governments in the region are intent on preventing the entry of Iraqis and make
no effort to regularize the status of Iraqis residing in their countries. UNHCR's
efforts to declare a region-wide temporary protection regime for Iraqis fleeing
war and persecution have largely fallen on deaf ears. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia bar the entry of most
Iraqis and have negligible numbers of Iraqi refugees in their territories. Although
Iran and Turkey are somewhat insulated from the problem by the predominant
ethnicities and religious persuasions of Iraqi asylum seekers, as well as other
buffers that result in fewer arrivals, neither state has made any provision for
considering refugee claims that Iraqis might make on their territories.

Syria
bears the greatest similarity to Jordan
and shares with Jordan
the bulk of the burden-hosting an estimated 450,000 Iraqis. Although Syria has
generally been tolerant toward Iraqis, its tolerance, like Jordan's, appears to
be ebbing, and Syria, like Jordan, has been less than forthright in identifying
refugees and asking for help on their behalf. Lebanon, which hosts an estimated
20,000 Iraqis, makes no allowance for refugees, provides no basis to allow them
to regularize their status, and regularly detains Iraqis who may well have
persecution claims in order to coerce them to "voluntarily" go home. Other
countries that host significant numbers of Iraqis, such as Yemen and Egypt, have taken steps to restrict
their entry. Generally, Iraqis throughout the Middle East
remain unregistered, uncounted, unassisted, and unprotected.

Governments outside the region are also all too willing to
look the other way to avoid recognizing the presence of Iraqi refugees in
Jordan-and, by implication, acknowledging this dimension of the human costs of
the war in Iraq. The United States
and the United Kingdom, the
two states most heavily committed militarily in Iraq,
have paid relatively little attention to the regional human fallout
precipitated largely by their military intervention in Iraq. Both states have close ties
with Jordan.
It should be in their interest to address the Iraqi refugee problem generated
by the Iraq
war before the massive refugee burden has a destabilizing effect on the region.
Since the start of the war in 2003 until the beginning of 2006, the United States took only 12 UNHCR-referred Iraqi
refugees from Jordan and the
United Kingdom
took none.

Jordan
has insisted that resettlement to third countries is the only option for
refugees on its territory whom UNHCR has recognized. It is also overwhelmingly
the preference voiced by Iraqi (as well as Palestinian and Iranian Kurdish)
refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch. Given the very large number of
people in need of protection in Jordan,
however, resettlement is not a viable option for more than a relatively small
number of the refugees in need of protection. Therefore another approach is
needed, and the Jordanian government and the international community need to be
convinced to subscribe to a more realistic, fair, and effective protection
regime.

Although unlikely under present circumstances, Jordan
should accede to the Refugee Convention and Protocol, establish domestic
refugee law and infrastructure, and take responsibility for protecting refugees
on its territory and at its borders. At a minimum, the government must meet its
international customary law obligations not to return Iraqis to persecution or
torture. This principle-nonrefoulement-applies
to asylum seekers, who, de facto, may be refugees, but who have not had the
opportunity to be officially recognized as such. The principle of nonrefoulement also applies to people
seeking asylum at the border whose rejection would likely subject them to
persecution or other serious harm.

Whether or not it accedes to the Refugee Convention and
incorporates the provisions of the Convention into domestic law, the Jordanian
government should institute its own temporary protection regime in response to
the ongoing armed conflict and generalized violence in Iraq and the danger of return. Jordan's
Law on Residence and Foreigners' Affairs gives the minister of interior the
discretion to waive normal immigration requirements "on account of special
considerations connected with international or humanitarian courtesy or of the
right to political asylum." The law's recognition of the right to seek asylum
and its allowance for international and humanitarian considerations provides
wide latitude for the minister of interior to exercise discretion to protect
Iraqis and other foreigners fleeing war and persecution. This statutory
provision provides clear authority in domestic law to embark on a temporary
protection regime, even in the absence of a refugee law.

Such an ad hoc TPR should include both a bar to deporting
Iraqis who register with the government for at least six-month intervals and
work authorization for those who have registered for temporary protection. The
government should announce an exemption from fines for overstaying visas for
Iraqis who register for the TPR. Government-issued temporary protection cards
should provide both renewable, time-limited residence permission and work
authorization. Iraqi temporary-protection beneficiaries should have equal
access to health care and education as Jordanian nationals. With the assistance
of UNHCR and the international community, the government should also provide
temporary accommodation to Iraqis seeking asylum at the border.

The purpose of this paper is not so much to highlight the
failures of the Jordanian government or to suggest that Jordan is uniquely responsible for
a refugee problem that it faces largely as a result of geographical and
historical happenstance. Jordan
needs to institute a more responsible refugee policy, but it should not be
expected to institute such a policy or bear the burden of such a policy alone. Its
regional neighbors should join in providing temporary refuge, and the wider
international community should provide prompt and generous support to enable Jordan
to keep its doors open and to provide first asylum.

This level of international support is unlikely to be
forthcoming, however, if Jordan
does not recognize the refugee problem and ask for international help to
address it. Yet the government studiously ignores both the scale of the problem
(somewhere between a half million and a million people) and its character (as
predominantly a refugee flow, not mere economic migration) to avoid
acknowledging its responsibility to assist and protect.

One thing is certain: "the silent treatment" is not working
and cannot continue. The government cannot go on pretending that huge numbers
of Iraqi refugees are not living in Jordan, and assume that UNHCR can
handle the problem. The scale of the refugee problem in Jordan is well beyond the resources of the UNHCR
office in Amman,
as currently constituted. The refugee reality in Jordan dictates a government
response that cannot be shirked off onto UNHCR's narrow shoulders.

If Jordan
does not follow Human Rights Watch's recommendation to institute its own
temporary protection regime, the government must at least allow UNHCR broad
authority to recognize refugees without guarantees that it will be able to find
resettlement places for them. Donor governments, led by the United States, the United
Kingdom, and the Gulf
States, must provide the resources to give UNHCR the
capacity to fulfill this role.

Minimally, Jordan
should admit asylum seekers and tolerate the presence of refugees broadly
recognized by UNHCR even if it is not able to provide them with a durable
solution. It should refrain from rejecting them at the border or deporting
them. It should allow them to work and provide them the basic necessities of
life required by international human rights standards, including
nondiscriminatory access to education and health care. Finally, Jordan
needs to speak up and call upon the international community for help to share
the enormous refugee burden it tries to ignore by remaining silent. Pretending
that the burden does not exist will neither make the problem go away nor
absolve Jordan
of its responsibilities to protect and assist.

Refugee Terminology

Human Rights Watch regards the vast majority of Iraqi
nationals, who have fled to Jordan
to seek protection, as "de facto refugees." Human Rights Watch chooses this
term because hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in Jordan have fled conditions of
generalized violence and persecution, and face objective conditions of danger
in their country of origin, even if they have not registered asylum claims or
had those claims adjudicated and been officially recognized by UNHCR as de jure
refugees.

The absence of a legal framework for refugee-status
recognition-or lack of access to procedures-does not obviate the reality of
being a refugee. As UNHCR's Handbook on
Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status notes:

A person is a refugee within the meaning of the 1951
Convention as soon as he fulfills the criteria contained in the definition. This
would necessarily occur prior to the time at which his refugee status is
formally determined. Recognition of his refugee status does not therefore make
him a refugee but declares him to be one. He does not become a refugee because
of recognition, but is recognized because he is a refugee.[1]

The term "asylum seeker" refers to a person who claims to be
a refugee but whose claim has not been determined. UNHCR-Amman stretches the
meaning of the term asylum seeker when it uses this term to designate Iraqis
who the office has registered for temporary protection because UNHCR, with a
few exceptions, is not actually adjudicating their refugee claims while its
temporary protection regime is in place.[2]
The asylum-seeker card issued by UNHCR carries few actual benefits; the
government does not recognize the card as conferring permission to reside or
work in Jordan,
but has formally agreed to inform UNHCR when it apprehends asylum-seeker card
holders pending their deportation to give UNHCR the opportunity to examine
their refugee claims.

The 1951 Refugee Convention refugee definition is based on a
"well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion."[3]
The 1998 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) under which UNHCR operates in Jordan
defines refugees according to the Refugee Convention and assigns UNHCR the
function of adjudicating refugee claims. In the MOU, the Jordanian government
agrees to abide by the principle of nonrefoulement
and UNHCR agrees to endeavor to find a durable solution-voluntary repatriation
or third-country resettlement-within six months of recognizing the individual
as a refugee.

UNHCR-Amman's caseload of recognized refugees in 2006
includes about 700 Iraqis, most of whom it recognized before 2003 when Saddam
Hussein was still in power.[4]
Since 2003, UNHCR-Amman has suspended refugee status determinations for all but
a few cases as part of its temporary protection regime. Therefore, either
because the vast majority of Iraqis in Jordan are unaware of UNHCR or of
the concept of refugee rights, or because they see little benefit to
registering asylum claims with the refugee agency, relatively few have
registered as asylum seekers and far fewer have been recognized as refugees. Many
Iraqis in Jordan appear,
however-prima facie-to be refugees in need of international protection, based
on dangerous or threatening conditions in Iraq.

Although the Refugee Convention refugee definition is based
on a narrow "well-founded fear of being persecuted" standard, the international
community is also progressively recognizing the need for international
protection for people fleeing war and serious civil disturbances, who may not
qualify under the Convention, but who nevertheless would face the risk of
serious harm if returned.[5]
Human Rights Watch chooses the term "de facto refugees," therefore, to capture
both persons who would qualify under the 1951 Refugee Convention if they had
access to procedures to recognize them as refugees under that instrument, as
well as persons who fear serious threats to their lives and freedom because of indiscriminate
violence and ongoing armed conflict. In choosing this term, we also recognize
that there are Iraqi nationals in Jordan who do not fear return, or
who would otherwise be excluded from refugee status,[6]
and who therefore should not be considered as refugees.

Recommendations

To the Jordanian Government

Institute
a temporary protection regime (TPR) based on the situation of ongoing
armed conflict and generalized violence in Iraq, possibly by invoking the
discretion given to the minister of interior in the Law on Residence and
Foreigners' Affairs to waive normal immigration requirements "on account
of special considerations connected with international or humanitarian
courtesy or of the right to political asylum."

At a
minimum, recognize the TPR initiated by the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees. A TPR should have the following components:

Temporarily
suspend all deportations of Iraqis who register with the government and
renew their TPR registrations for at least six-month intervals.

Admit
at least temporarily Iraqi and Palestinian asylum seekers who present
claims at the border pending a determination of their claims.

Provide
work authorization for TPR registrants.

Exempt
from fines Iraqis who have overstayed their visas when they register for
the TPR.

Ensure
the right of all children residing in Jordan,
regardless of residency status, to free and compulsory primary education,
consistent with Jordan's
obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child. To that end, immediately and unambiguously announce that all
children will be welcome in public schools regardless of immigration
status, and take steps to recognize and accredit otherwise qualifying
private schools that cater to Iraqi students.

Accede
to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.

In
consultation with UNHCR, establish a domestic refugee law to enable
Jordanian authorities to determine refugee claims and provide protection
to refugees seeking asylum in Jordan-at its most basic
level, protection from refoulement.

Survey
the population of Iraqis in Jordan to identify their
numbers and the scope of their needs.

Ask
for financial and technical assistance from the international community to
help meet the challenge to Jordan
of providing temporary asylum to Iraqi refugees, including for other
countries to help Jordan
by resettling Iraqi refugees in need of durable solutions.

To the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Conduct
a survey of Iraqi nationals in Jordan
comparable to the survey conducted by the Danish Refugee Council on Iraqis
in Lebanon[7]
or the joint UNHCR, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and World
Food Program (WFP) assessment of Iraqi refugees in Syria.[8]

Intervene-at
least to assess the refugee claim-when any detained Iraqi (or other
foreigner) at risk of deportation makes a refugee claim. Do not limit
interventions on behalf of asylum-seeking detainees to those who have
previously registered with UNHCR.

If
the current arrangement of issuing asylum-seeker cards for purposes of
temporary protection is maintained, then provide such cards to previously
rejected asylum seekers whose cases were closed, who may no longer be
candidates for refugee recognition, but who may nevertheless need
temporary protection based on generalized conditions of violence in Iraq.

When
conducting refugee status determinations, ensure that UNHCR Executive
Committee (ExCom) Conclusion 103 on the Provision of International
Protection including through Complementary Forms of Protection is being
followed so that protection is extended to war refugees and not only refugees
who fall within the 1951 Refugee Convention definition.[9]

Establish
a UNHCR border-monitoring presence and have at least one protection
officer dedicated to monitoring border protection.

Explore
more creative solutions to resolve the situation of the Iranian Kurds in
the no-man's land (NML) at the Iraq-Jordan border. Confidence-building
measures could include taking camp leaders and residents for "go and see
visits" to the Kawa camp in the Qoshtapa area of northern Iraq to see
firsthand the place UNHCR says they would be safe, and where other Iranian
Kurdish refugees are currently living. Or, explore the possibility of
establishing a program of eligibility for NML Iranian Kurds with family
links or ongoing protection problems in northern Iraq to seek resettlement opportunities to Sweden, New
Zealand, and Ireland
(the countries that have resettled the most Iranian Kurds from al-Ruwaishid)
after their return to northern Iraq.

To the United States

Work
through UNHCR and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to provide quick
and meaningful technical and financial support to protect and assist Iraqi
and Palestinian refugees from Iraq
in Jordan
and elsewhere in the region.

Institute
a significant refugee resettlement program for Iraqi refugees of special
humanitarian concern to the United States,
at least including persecuted religious minorities and people persecuted
or threatened with persecution on account of their imputed or actual
association with the U.S.
government or private American organizations. Create a Priority Two
refugee-processing category to expedite the resettlement of some or all of
these groups, and expand eligibility for family members in the United States
to petition for Iraqi refugee relatives to reunite with them.[10]
Respond positively and quickly to UNHCR referrals to resettle Iraqi
refugees who do not fall into the category groups specified above.

Resettle
to the United States on a humanitarian basis based on past persecution,
Iraqi refugees recognized by UNHCR during the Saddam Hussein era and
referred to the United States for resettlement, who were not resettled to
the United States as a result of the U.S. moratorium on resettlement of
Iraqis after September 11, 2001, and who have been living in limbo since
that time. Doing so will not only serve an immediate humanitarian need,
but will also help to expedite the processing of "new caseload" Iraqi
refugees for U.S.
resettlement.

Provide
leadership to other donor governments and at UNHCR's Executive Committee
regarding the need for significantly greater emergency funding for refugee
needs in Jordan and
elsewhere in the region arising from the humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

To the United Kingdom

In
light of the United Kingdom's
intricate historical and present involvement with Jordan and as the United States' major coalition partner in Iraq, institute a significant refugee
resettlement program for Iraqi refugees, particularly those with links to
the United Kingdom.

Provide generous financial assistance to
Iraqi refugees in the region through UNHCR and NGOs.

To Ireland, New Zealand, and Sweden

In
light of having resettled the bulk of the Iranian Kurds from al-Ruwaishid,
offer to consider for resettlement those of the 192 Iranian Kurds still in
the no-man's land who first voluntarily move to northern Iraq, and who
after moving there can show ongoing protection needs, demonstrate
meaningful barriers to local integration, or establish family links to
Sweden, New Zealand, or Ireland.

Institute
a temporary protection regime based on the situation of ongoing armed
conflict and generalized violence in Iraq, or, at the least,
recognize the TPR initiated by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees. Depending on the resources of the particular country and on the
refugee burden it bears, join with Jordan in seeking financial
and technical assistance, as needed, from the international community to
meet the challenge of providing temporary asylum to Iraqi refugees,
including through resettling Iraqi refugees in need of durable solutions
to third countries.

Kuwait, Lebanon,
Saudi Arabia, and Syria should accede to the 1951 Refugee
Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and Turkey should drop its
geographical limitation to the Convention and Protocol. In consultation
with UNHCR, all countries in the region should establish domestic refugee
laws and build infrastructures to enable government authorities to
determine refugee claims and provide protection to refugees.

Syria should admit the 200 Palestinian
refugees stranded at the Syria-Iraq border and reopen the Syrian border to
Palestinian refugees from Iraq,
consistent with Syria's
admission on May 9, 2006, of the Palestinian refugees stranded at the
Jordan-Iraq border.

Lebanon should discontinue its practice of
detaining Iraqis indefinitely for illegal entry or stay as a means of
coercing them to opt for "voluntary" return to Iraq.

To the European Union (and European Union member states), the Arab League
(and its member states, including in particular Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia), Iran, Turkey,
Israel
and Other Donor Governments

Contribute
quickly and generously both bilaterally and through UNHCR to meet the
humanitarian and protection needs of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees from Iraq in Jordan and elsewhere in the
region.

In a
spirit of international humanitarian solidarity, governments inside and
outside the region should share the human burden by providing both
temporary and permanent asylum, as appropriate, to Iraqi and Palestinian
refugees fleeing war and persecution in Iraq in order to prevent refoulement and maintain at least
temporary asylum in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and other countries in the region
that may struggle to cope with the influx of refugees from Iraq.

To the UNHCR Executive Committee

Recognize
that the refugee emergency in Jordan and elsewhere in the
region is of a major scale and that the numbers of Iraqi refugees and
their needs are substantially greater than has heretofore been
acknowledged.

Base
funding of UNHCR operations in Jordan
and Syria
on a real needs-based assessment rather than on anticipated resources.

III. Background

Today, Jordan
has the highest ratio of refugees to total population of any country in the
world.[11]
Palestinian refugees registered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) comprise about 30 percent of
Jordan's population of 5.8 million people.[12]
In addition to this long-standing refugee population who fled or were expelled
from Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories from the west, one of the largest
new influxes of "de facto refugees" in recent years-now numbering at least
500,000 and possibly as many as one million-has fled from Jordan's neighbor to
the east, Iraq.[13]

Iraq and Jordan
share historical ties. Iraq's
monarch, before the country became a republic in 1958, was a brother of Jordan's king, both of them descendents of the
Hashemite family of Saudi
Arabia.[14]Iraq was also Jordan's
most important trading partner,[15]
and, as a comparatively stable country, has long offered safety and relative
freedom to Iraqis fleeing political upheaval and repression.[16]

The numbers of Iraqis fleeing to Jordan
began to rise from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand in the 1990s, when
Saddam Hussein brutally repressed Shi`a Iraqis, Kurds (though few Iraqi Kurds
fled to Jordan),
and any others who dissented from his rule. Another cause for flight was the
accelerating economic decline and dire humanitarian situation in Iraq, caused in part by a comprehensive
sanctions regime placed on Iraq
by the UN Security Council. By the start of the war in April 2003, Jordan
was estimated to host between 250,000 and 300,000 refugees.[17]
The 2003 war and its continuing aftermath brought new waves of Iraqis to Jordan,
at least doubling their number by 2006. Amman's
population is estimated to have grown by as much as one-third since the war
began.[18]

Until November 2005 the Jordanian government and Jordanian
law enforcement officials had demonstrated considerable leniency in enforcing
immigration laws, usually deporting Iraqis only if they violated other laws. Jordanian
hospitality and tolerance toward Iraqis came under particular stress, however,
when three Iraqis killed 60 people by setting off bombs in three large hotels
in Amman in
November 2005.

Although Iraqi nationals in Jordan interviewed by Human Rights
Watch rarely alleged being personally harassed or abused in the aftermath of
those bombings, resentment is rising and the government is cracking down on
young Iraqis staying and working illegally.[19]
Attitudes among Jordanians also appear to be hardening, and Iraqis appear
increasingly at risk of being scapegoated for a wide variety of social
problems. An observer wrote:

When I ask Jordanians about Iraqis in their midst, they
voice sentiments like these: "The Iraqis make it harder for us because prices
are going up"; "Youth who want to get married say they can't find apartments
because the prices are too high"; "Iraqis are taking all of the jobs";
"Employers favor them because they can have them for less pay"; "We had a
safe, secure Jordan, but crime is rising. Now there is prostitution, robbery,
and theft."[20]

UNHCR's tally of detained asylum seekers jumped from a
monthly average of 16 cases to 40 cases in November 2005, the month of the
hotel bombings.[21]
After the bombings, Jordan
appears to have increasingly begun deporting visa "overstayers" back to Iraq
and now denies entry to increasing numbers of Iraqis at the border, according
to unofficial accounts.[22]
Taxi drivers on the Baghdad-Amman route and Iraqis who had made the journey to Amman told Human Rights Watch that Jordanian officials are
now turning back the majority of Iraqis seeking entry at the land border at
al-Karama, the only land crossing between Iraq
and Jordan.[23]

IV. Refoulement-Rejections
at the Border and Deportations

Jordan's Nonrefoulement Obligations

Jordan
acceded to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) on November 13, 1991, and
is bound under Article 3 of that instrument not to return or expel any persons
to states where they would be in danger of being tortured.[24]Jordan
is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, but is
nevertheless bound by customary international law not to return refugees to a
place where their lives or freedom would be threatened. UNHCR's Executive
Committee-of which Jordan
is a member[25]-adopted
Conclusion 25 in 1982, which declared that "the principle of nonrefoulementwas progressively
acquiring the character of a peremptory rule of international law."[26]

The UN General Assembly reinforced the international
consensus that the nonrefoulement
obligation adheres to all states, not just signatories to the Refugee
Convention, when it adopted Resolution 51/75 on August 12, 1997, which:

[c]alls upon all States to uphold asylum as an
indispensable instrument for international protection of refugees and to
respect scrupulously the fundamental principle of nonrefoulement, which is not subject to derogation.[27]

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the
Refugee Convention in 2001, the Declaration of States Parties to the 1951
Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees
acknowledged "the continuing relevance and resilience of this international
regime of rights and principles, including at its core the principle of nonrefoulement, whose applicability is
embedded in customary international law."[28]
Later that year, the UN General Assembly welcomed the Declaration.[29]

Jordan
has explicitly pledged to uphold its nonrefoulement
obligations on several formal occasions. In the Memorandum of Understanding
Jordan signed with UNHCR in April 1998 it agreed:

In order to safeguard the asylum institution in Jordan and
to enable UNHCR to act within its mandateit was agreedthat the principle of non-refoulement should be respected that
no refugee seeking asylum in Jordan will be returned to a country where his
life or freedom could be threatened because of his race, religion, nationality,
membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.[30]

When Jordan
presented its candidacy to the UN Human Rights Council on April 20, 2006, it
formally provided the United Nations with its pledges and commitments for the
promotion and protection of human rights. It said:

Over the last decades, the country has given shelter and
protection to many waves of refugees; Jordan, as a long-standing host
country, reiterates its commitment to fulfilling its obligations in accordance
with the principles of international refugee law including those which are
peremptory as well as international human rights law.[31]

Jordan's
statements formally recognize that refugee protection is an obligation, and
that it is committed to fulfilling this obligation, which includes abiding by
peremptory norms (that is, customary law)-the most fundamental of which for
refugees is the principle of nonrefoulement.
Nonetheless, Jordan violated
this principle when it returned three UNHCR refugee-card holders to Iraq
in 2005, as well as in many other cases (see below).[32]

Nonrefoulement obligation adheres to de facto
refugees and at the border

Because refugee status is declaratory,[33]
the fundamental principles of refugee protection apply equally to de facto
refugees who have not been formally recognized as de jure refugees. UNHCR's
Executive Committee reiterated that the nonrefoulement
obligation equally protects de facto refugees in 1996 with Conclusion 79, which
reaffirmed the principle of nonrefoulement
as prohibiting the expulsion and return of refugees "whether or not they have
formally been granted refugee status."[34]

The principle of nonrefoulement
as a customary norm of international law applies not only to de jure and de
facto refugees within the territory of a state, but also to rejection of de jure
and de facto refugees at the frontiers. In its October 2004 meeting, UNHCR's
ExCom issued Conclusion 99, which calls on States to ensure "full respect for
the fundamental principle of nonrefoulement,
including non-rejection at frontiers without access to fair and
effective procedures for determining status and protection needs."[35]
(Emphasis added.) This Conclusion not only explicitly notes that the nonrefoulement obligation applies to
rejection at borders, but also calls for fair and effective procedures for
determining status and protection needs, which are also lacking for arrivals at
Jordan's borders and ports of entry.

Conclusion 99 was the last in a long series of ExCom
conclusions, starting with ExCom Conclusion 6 in 1977, which "[r]eaffirms the
fundamental importance of the observance of the principle of nonrefoulement-both at the border
and within the territory of a State"[36]
(Emphasis added.) ExCom Conclusion 22 of 1981 on the Protection of Asylum
Seekers in Situations of Large-scale Influx-such as that from Iraq-says:

In situations of large-scale influx, asylum seekers should
be admitted to the State in which they first seek refuge and if that State is
unable to admit them on a durable basis, it should always admit them at least
on a temporary basis...They should be admitted without any discrimination as to
race, religion, political opinion, nationality, country of origin or physical
incapacity. In all cases the fundamental principle of nonrefoulement-including non-rejection at the frontier-must
be scrupulously observed.[37]
(Emphasis added.)

The practical consequence of the application of the
principle of nonrefoulement at the
border requires that Jordan allow asylum seekers fleeing widespread human
rights abuses and generalized violence (even where the influx is significant)
to enter the country, at least temporarily, to be screened for refugee status,
so as not to return them to persecution.

Accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch strongly suggest
that many Iraqis-perhaps most-are being turned away at the border without
giving them any opportunity to make refugee claims, possibly returning them to
persecution. By rejecting asylum seekers at the border, Jordan breaches this international
obligation.

International refugee law does not formally provide an
asylum seeker (a person claiming to be a refugee) the right to enter. The refoulement prohibition, however,
provides little latitude when asylum seekers appear at a land border. The
conundrum of a lack of a formal right to enter combined with the prohibition
against returning asylum seekers (who may, in fact, be refugees) to persecution
has bedeviled many governments-Jordan is not alone in confronting the
contradiction between its sovereign prerogative of who may enter and its
obligation not to return refugees to persecution.

An April 15, 2003, Letter of Understanding between UNHCR and
the Jordanian government sought to solve precisely this dilemma. The two
parties agreed "to provide for safe facilities for the temporary protection of
beneficiaries," while also agreeing that "the provision of temporary
protection, pending a longer-term solution, does not include the possibility of
local integration, assimilation or permanent residency in the territory of the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan."[38]
As a result of this agreement, the Jordanian government agreed to erect the
Ruwaishid refugee camp close to the border but within Jordanian territory in
April 2003.[39]

International refugee law frowns upon any restrictions
placed on the movements of refugees within countries of asylum. However,
governments can justify some exceptions to the right of free movement for
refugees on strictly necessary national security and other grounds.[40]
The continuing use or expansion of al-Ruwaishid camp with restrictions to
refugees' rights of movement would be one option, if Jordan could show how their
movement would endanger its national security. While restricting refugees to
camps is far from a desirable solution, it is preferable to pushing Iraqi
asylum seekers back at the border.

Rejection at the Border

The road from Baghdad to Amman is highly dangerous.
From Ramadi, about 100 kilometers west of Baghdad,
there is only one road to the border, making those traveling through the desert
toward Jordan
an easy target for highway robbers and militants. Baghdad-Amman taxi drivers
showed Human Rights Watch bullet holes in the heavy, oversized sport utility
vehicles that are their preferred taxis. A driver described the route:

There are a lot of armed groups who steal, and kill people.
There is a big division between Shi`a and Sunni now. If the armed group is
Shi`a, they kill Sunnis, and vice versa. Two weeks ago, some people in a BMW,
with weapons, stopped my car. They took us out of the car and walked us five
kilometers into the desert. They stole all of the money of the passengers. They
also took me into the desert. They only took our money and then went away, so
we walked back to the car. There are thieves, but then there is the mujahideen [as the Iraqi insurgents are
called]. The mujahideen, if they know
any of your passengers are foreigners, they will take them and they will never
be seen again. [41]

Another driver told Human Rights Watch a similar story of
being robbed, and how one of his passengers was kidnapped and held for ransom. He
also compared the different tactics highway robbers and insurgents use:

The mujahideen stop
us on the road and ask us if we have any foreigners, police, or National
Guards. They especially want Americans. The danger of the mujahideen is less than from the thieves. But if they discover
police or National Guard in my car, and I didn't inform them, they will kill us
both.[42]

After surviving the perilous journey from Baghdad,
Iraqis face the even harder, though less dangerous, task of gaining entry to Jordan.
Since the November 2005 hotel bombings, Jordan appears to be denying entry
to increasing numbers of Iraqis. In interviews, taxi drivers and recent
arrivals said that Jordanian border authorities are now turning back the
majority of Iraqis they had witnessed seeking entry to Jordan. A taxi driver who has been
plying the Baghdad-Amman route for the past six years observed, "Under Saddam,
the Jordanians let all Iraqis pass, even those with fake passports. No one was
turned back. Now, it is worse and worse from day to day, especially after the
explosions in Amman."[43]

Another taxi driver said:

We have problems at the Karama border, on the Jordanian
part of the border. They don't give us any specific reason why they turn people
back; it just depends on their mood. I transport about 25 people from Baghdad to Amman
a month, but on average only five people will be allowed to enter. The others
will get a stamp in their passport saying that they were returned, and then are
sent back to Baghdad.[44]

Other taxi drivers confirmed that some Iraqis' passports are
stamped with a red stamp when they are refused entry at the border. The same
taxi driver said that people who try to return to the border who have had their
passports stamped are treated badly. "Sometimes they even hit them, especially
the mukhabarat [intelligence]
people."[45]

A Washington Post
report noted that Jordanian officials reject Iraqis not only at the Karama
crossing, the main entry point overland from Iraq, but at every port of entry:

Jordanian border police are turning away hundreds of Iraqi
vehicles daily at the Karama border crossing, often without explanation,
creating a huge parking lot of frustrated travelers in the Iraqi desert. At QueenAliaInternationalAirport,
just south of Jordan's
capital, Amman,
Iraqi passengers are ushered into a room and interrogated before being allowed
to enter the country. And some Iraqis who used to be able to get 30-day visas
to Jordan
are now being allowed just to stay a few days at a time.[46]

The Washington Post
went on to cite the Jordanian government's spokesman, Nasir Judah, as
confirming that Jordan
"had imposed new border restrictions on January 2, 2006 that prohibit vehicles
with Iraqi license plates from entering the country."[47]e Enhanced security concerns likely
account for some of the rejections and contribute to the long delays of 10
hours or more at the border crossing. A businessman from Falluja who travels
frequently to Amman
told Human Rights Watch, "The last time, the Jordanians searched my car and
tested my hands for explosive powder. They brought a dog to search us."[48]

The taxi drivers and other travelers interviewed by Human
Rights Watch said that border guards' decisions regarding whom to admit or
reject appear to be arbitrary, but that they turn away young men and poor
people more often than others. They said the guards are more likely to admit
people in need of medical care with proven appointments in Amman. Taxi drivers said that border
officials are sometimes rough and rude with Iraqis but that it is impossible to
get in by a bribe. One said, "At the Jordanian border, it is completely random
whether they let you through. It depends on the face of the person who wants to
come in and the mood of the officer."[49]

Ministry of Interior officials in Amman denied that there was anything
arbitrary in border rejections. Officials told Human Rights Watch that border
guards turn away people if they have false passports or appear to be part of
smuggling operations. The MOI secretary general said that most Iraqis trying to
enter have forged passports.[50]

Although Human Rights Watch collected anecdotal accounts
indicating that some Iraqis continue to use false passports, there are also
large numbers of Iraqis traveling with valid passports. During a ten-month
period between July 2005 and April 2006, the present Iraqi government issued
passports to 1.85 million Iraqis.[51]
Although Iraqi refugees report endemic corruption in the Iraqi government's
passport-issuing authority, so that even a government-issued passport does not
necessarily serve as a legitimate identification document, people fleeing
persecution today have less need to use fraudulent documents than in the
Ba`thist era, when the government more strictly controlled passport issuance. In
any case, asylum seekers have a right to seek asylum even if they do not have
proper travel documents, and should not be rejected at the border.[52]

Arrests and Deportations of Iraqi Nationals

In Jordan,
special police affiliated with the Ministry of Labor enforce immigration laws
in the workplace while the Department of Residence and Borders in the Ministry
of Interior enforces immigration laws elsewhere.[53]
Arrest, however, is often a matter of chance. An Iraqi Shi`a woman, who works
for one of the international NGOs that provide services for Iraqis, said:

In Amman,
the Wafidin [migrants' police] roam
the streets and carry out arrests. They wear civilian clothes. They make
'mercy' exceptions; if someone in the police or other ministry knows or likes
you, you can avoid arrest or get out once arrested. The police know who to
arrest by their faces and rarely go after well-dressed people.[54]

Although those slated for deportation have a right under
Jordanian law to appeal an administrative order of deportation within 60 days,
in practice deportation orders are rarely appealed.[55]
MOI officials say that they allow any Iraqi facing deportation to go to Syria or Yemen,
which do not require visas from Iraqis, and that most Iraqis in that situation
exercise this option rather than go back to Iraq.[56]

Deportation procedures for Iraqis are swift. Iraqis
interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that the police authorities wait until
they have enough Iraqi overstayers to fill a bus. They said that a bus of
deportees travels from Amman
to the land border nearly every day since the hotel bombings,[57]
an observation confirmed by a diplomatic source and a legal service provider.[58]

Jordanian authorities hold illegal Iraqi overstayers from a
few days up to a week in deportation centers, such as Gwesmah in Jabal Habib,
or in Markaz al-`Asima, after apprehending them. Gwesmah holds only about a
dozen people at a time, according to an employee of the government-appointed NationalCenter for Human Rights, who said that
the place was clean and that the kind and amount of food there appeared
sufficient: "There were no problems there, except that they were being
deported."[59]
Iraqis confirmed to Human Rights Watch that police usually escort detainees to
their apartments to gather their possessions before deportation.

Jordanian officials exercise a high degree of discretion
when deporting Iraqis; this results in highly inconsistent practices. For
example, Jordanian officials put different color stamps in deportees'
passports, each meant to indicate a different time limit on re-entry, with no
explanation and no discernable connection between the color of the stamp and
the duration of the bar on re-entry. Those who receive a red, triangular stamp
in their passport are barred from re-entry.[60]
Some Iraqis said border guards told them this stamp means a lifetime exclusion,
but others say it signifies a bar for five years. Authorities allow some deportees to pay the
accrued fines equivalent to US$2 per day and avoid deportation. They allow
others to pay the fines and avoid the red exclusion stamps when they are
deported, theoretically allowing them the opportunity to re-enter the country.

Iraqi de jure and de facto refugees in Jordan fall into four categories:

3.Persons UNHCR rejected as refugees prior to
2003, but whose need for at least temporary protection may have changed because
of the war; and

4.Persons who have not approached UNHCR, but who
fled persecution or generalized violence.

Although circumstances among these categories vary, as
outlined below, they all lack a secure legal status in Jordan, live on the margins, and fear being
forcibly returned to Iraq.

UNHCR-recognized refugees

UNHCR-recognized refugees do not have any particular status
under Jordanian law and in particular do not acquire rights, even temporarily,
of residency or the right to work. Instead they are supposed to await
resettlement in a third country. However, Jordan
does not automatically deport UNHCR-recognized refugees if they are apprehended
for working or residing in Jordan
illegally, but instead gives them four options:

1.They can depart voluntarily (which is not a
realistic option for UNHCR-recognized refugees);

2.They can stay in jail until UNHCR finds a
durable solution on their behalf (the usual practice for those who have
committed a serious crime or those whom the authorities consider to be a danger
to the security of Jordan);

3.They can be released without conditions (the
usual practice for those who were not caught working illegally, but who only
overstayed their residency visas); or

4.They can be required to find a Jordanian sponsor
who will guarantee their departure from Jordan as a condition for release
(the usual practice for those caught working illegally or committing a minor
crime).[61]

In all four cases the authorities formally issue a
deportation decision and require the detainee to agree formally to leave the
country as a condition for release from detention, though the authorities, in
practice, do not necessarily require return to the home country. In practice,
if UNHCR issues a letter on the refugee's behalf the authorities do not execute
the deportation order, but use it as a means of keeping pressure on UNHCR to
find a country willing to resettle the refugee.[62]
Under the fourth option, Jordanian sponsors relinquish their identity documents
to the arresting authority as a condition for the Iraqi's release. They are
permitted to retrieve their IDs when they can verify the departure of the Iraqi
refugee or find another sponsor to assume responsibility for the refugee.[63]
Jordanian sponsors have been able to retrieve their identity documents by
establishing that the Iraqi refugee had paid the accrued fines (which
implicitly suggests that the refugee left the country since many pay their
fines when exiting).[64]
In some cases, however, the Jordanian sponsorship, in effect, serves as a
mechanism for posting (and jumping) bail.

Human Rights Watch collected the names of 29 UNHCR
refugee-card holders who had been paroled from detention after Jordanian
sponsors provided guarantees on their behalf, often in return for money. In
response to written questions by Human Rights Watch, eight of those former
detainees described their arrest and release.[65]
Jordanian police arrested them between February 2005 and April 2006 and
detained them from two days to 24 days before releasing them, after Jordanian
sponsors came forward on their behalf. The other 21 only gave their names and
refugee-card numbers but did not fill out the questionnaire, fearing
repercussions. "There are tens of refugees who were afraid to fill out, feeling
afraid that some unknown thing would happen to them," said the refugee who
collected the information for Human Rights Watch. "There are also a lot of the
refugees who are still in prison and some who had been taken out of Jordan."[66]

Despite UNHCR's objections the Jordanian authorities
deported three UNHCR-recognized refugees to Iraq in 2005; one had a criminal
conviction and the other two were alleged to have committed crimes but had not
been convicted.[67]
Such returns constitute refoulement,
a breach of Jordan's
international obligations.

Asylum-seeker card holders under UNHCR's temporary
protection regime

The UNHCR card for asylum seekers, issued as part of its
temporary protection regime, offers little protection against deportation and
no other benefits. Jordanian policy is to notify UNHCR when its law-enforcement
officials detain asylum-seeker card holders on immigration violations and to
allow UNHCR staff to visit them in the detention centers to conduct refugee
status determinations. In fact, UNHCR conducted almost all of its RSDs in 2005
with people in detention.[68]
The refugee agency intervened on behalf of 191 detained asylum-seeker card-holders
in 2005. During that year Jordan
deported 121 Iraqis who had held asylum-seeker cards but whom UNHCR rejected as
refugees according to the 1951 Refugee Convention refugee definition.[69]
UNHCR recognized 22 Iraqis as refugees in 2005.[70]

This raises immediate questions about the thoroughness of
the RSDs and the refugee-definition standards on which they are based, the
right to appeal negative UNHCR decisions, other due process rights that might
be compromised in a detention setting, and, most obviously, the meaning and
value of a supposed temporary protection regime that fails to protect
everyone-including rejected asylum seekers-from deportation based on conditions
of generalized violence. Rejected asylum seekers are subject to deportation,
though UNHCR informs anyone whose application has been rejected that they may
appeal the refugee agency's rejection of their refugee claims. In most cases
detained asylum seekers do appeal UNHCR's first-instance rejection of their
claims, according to UNHCR, and their deportations are suspended while the
appeals are pending (though they remain in detention).[71]

Under normal circumstances rejected asylum seekers are no
longer of concern to UNHCR, and their deportation would not raise protection
concerns. Under a temporary protection regime, however, all nationals of the
country experiencing warfare or generalized violence should fall under UNHCR's
protection, even those who do not meet the 1951 Refugee Convention refugee
definition. After UNHCR rejects a detained Iraqi asylum seeker, it sends the
following letter to the Jordanian authorities:

UNHCR's position on the return of rejected Iraqis from Jordan
is guided by the international legal principles governing its protection
mandate, taking into consideration the situation of the concerned individuals
as well as the cooperation of the Jordanian and Iraqi authorities. Within this
context, UNHCR seeks the cooperation of the Jordanian authorities, as it has
requested the cooperation of other States, in continuing to extend flexibility
in allowing even rejected asylum seekers to remain in Jordan until such time as the security situation
in Iraq has improved and the
concerned individuals can be returned to Iraq at no security risk.[72]

That Jordan nevertheless deported 121 rejected asylum
seekers in 2005 shows that it was not inclined to heed UNHCR's request to show
flexibility. Despite the temporary protection regime, UNHCR does not regard
these forced returns as refoulement
and did not consider them as "people of concern" (a wider formulation that
UNHCR sometimes uses) at the time they were deported.[73]
UNHCR's position is inconsistent; it has called for a TPR "for all Iraqis"
without distinction,[74]
yet reveals a critical blind spot with respect to Iraqis who actually sought
refugee-status protection but whom UNHCR found not to meet the 1951 Refugee
Convention definition. Human Rights Watch regards the forced return of such
Iraqis as refoulement because they
sought protection in Jordan
and because of the high level of risk of serious harm they face upon being
forcibly returned to Iraq.

In practice even the asylum-seeker card's supposed limited
protection of a guaranteed UNHCR refugee-status interview had broken down by
the time of Human Rights Watch's visit. In one case a Shi`a woman from Najaf
told Human Rights Watch that in March 2005, Jordanian authorities deported her
husband, who had overstayed his visa and was working illegally, despite his
UNHCR card:

He was arrested in Aqaba while he was working on a job
site. They directly deported him. They told him, "You are a guest and you know
the law. The law prevents you from working." He couldn't afford to pay the
[residency fines]. He showed them the UN card, and they said it means nothing. When
he was deported, they stamped his passport so he can't come back for five
years. Even after five years, they won't allow him to go back to Jordan-when
they see the stamp, they exclude you.[75]

While this man had committed a violation of Jordanian law by
working without a permit, international law-the principle of nonrefoulement-nevertheless protects him
from being returned to Iraq
should he face there the likelihood of persecution, torture, or other serious
harm. Since returning to Iraq,
the wife said that her husband has been injured in a terrorist attack and
suffered a heart attack. The authorities failed to respect the fact that he was
carrying a UNHCR card, and thus clearly committed refoulement when they forcibly returned him to Iraq.

Persons UNHCR rejected as refugees prior to 2003,
but whose need for at least temporary protection may have changed because of
the war

Jordan
regards asylum seekers who sought recognition as refugees with UNHCR during the
Saddam Hussein era but who at the time were rejected as illegal aliens as
subject to deportation, even though the circumstances in Iraq have changed and they may now
be seriously harmed if returned. Despite proclaiming a blanket temporary
protection regime UNHCR has refused to issue asylum-seeker cards intended to
provide temporary protection to previously rejected asylum seekers, even though
they now have the same needs for temporary protection as other de facto
refugees living in Jordan.[76]

Formerly rejected refugee claimants have lived in Jordan
for many years, and many have experienced various forms of hardship. A Shi`a
man from Missan Governorate told Human Rights Watch about his separation from
his wife and children. He said that he fled Iraq in 1998 after the government
executed five of his relatives. He said that UNHCR rejected his refugee claim
and that his family had been accruing large overstayer fines ever since his
visa expired. Because UNHCR had rejected his refugee claim and closed his case,
he was not eligible for an asylum-seeker card when UNHCR instituted its
temporary protection regime in 2003. Faced with the possibility that the
Jordanian authorities might arrest, detain, and deport his wife and five
children, he decided to send them back to Iraq but felt that it would be too
risky for him to return with them. The Jordanian border officials stamped their
passports with red exclusion stamps. He does not know when he will see them
again. "We are like prisoners of war," he told Human Rights Watch. "If I go to
the border, I can't come back." Similarly, because of their exclusion stamps,
his wife and children cannot come and visit him in Jordan.[77]

A 58-year-old Shi`a man, who told Human Rights Watch Iraqi
officials had arrested him three times in the 1980s for his communist
activities, said that UNHCR rejected his refugee claim in 2001 and closed his
case. He said that the UNHCR office has repeatedly turned him away since the
war began, and seven months ago (well within the time frame of the temporary
protection regime) took away his old asylum-seeker card, leaving him with
nothing to show the police if he is arrested for overstaying his visa.[78]

An Assyrian[79]
Christian woman who has lived in Jordan since 1995 told Human Rights
Watch of her increasingly desperate attempts to find temporary protection for
her family after UNHCR rejected her husband's refugee claim in 1998. She said
that her husband had been a member of an Assyrian political party, whom Ba`th
Party officials had arrested and tortured, leaving him permanently handicapped.
Despite his disability Iraq
conscripted him into its military forces, from which he deserted-a capital
offense. They arrived in Jordan
in 1995 after Turkish and Syrian border guards had refused them entry at their
respective borders. Jordanian police arrested her son in 1999 while walking on
the street and jailed him for 13 days in the Zuhar police department for
juveniles. "We went to UNHCR to ask for help to take him out of jail, but they
said that the file was closed."[80]
The police used her detained son as bait to apprehend the rest of the family,
and they were all deported to Syria
later that year. The family found that they could not earn enough to live in
Syria; the mother and children returned to Jordan shortly after being deported,
but her husband remained in Syria for more than a year before rejoining them in
Jordan. Jordanian police apprehended her again in late 1999. She paid the fine
for overstaying her visa and went to Lebanon as part of a tourist group
for three days to renew her Jordanian visa for another six months.

After the war began and UNHCR started the temporary
protection regime, this woman was able to get a UNHCR asylum-seeker card in her
name that includes her children but excludes her husband. He therefore is
denied whatever protection UNHCR might be able to provide under the TPR to
asylum-card holders. The family lives in constant fear of deportation. "For
eleven years my children did not go to school. My daughter worked in a picture
studio, but one of her co-workers grew jealous of her and said she would call
the police and report her for working illegally if she didn't quit. We are now
too afraid to work." She added, "I would never ever consider going back to Iraq."[81]

Persons who have not approached UNHCR, but who fled
persecution or generalized violence

Most deportees carry neither UNHCR refugee nor asylum-seeker
cards, but may well have justified claims to refugee status based on their
experiences in Iraq.
Human Rights Watch interviewed an Assyrian Christian woman from Mosul whose husband was deported from Jordan on September 25, 2005. Jordanian
police arrested him at a restaurant after a policeman apparently randomly asked
him for his ID and found him to be without documents. His wife had his passport
at home. She took the passport to UNHCR and told them her story of having fled
Iraq (she had worked in a beauty salon, said something negative about the
government one day during the Ba`thist era, and a customer reported her to the
security forces, who falsely accused her of being a spy). She asked UNHCR to
intervene on behalf of her husband. After the Jordanian police had detained her
husband, she said that they requested his passport as part of the deportation
process. She asked UNHCR to take the passport to the police station at
al-Ashrafiya and to visit her husband there. She not only wanted UNHCR's
intervention on behalf of her husband, but was afraid to take the passport to
the police herself since she was also a visa overstayer: "I was afraid I would
be deported too." She met with UNHCR. "I told them our story," she said. "He
was still in the police department. I was crying." She said that UNHCR would
not visit her husband while he was detained pending deportation because he had
not previously registered with them. "They told me to calm down. They wouldn't
take his passport. They were not interested to help."[82]

Four days after her husband's deportation, UNHCR gave the
woman an asylum-seeker card. "I need to go to the market to do the things my
husband used to do. People make comments. They insinuate things." She has
spoken to her husband by phone. "He said that someone wrote on the church door
'Death to Christians.' My husband told me he is afraid to leave the house. He
doesn't work. He told me not to come back."

Human Rights Watch contacted two Iraqis recently deported
from Jordan to Iraq. Neither
person had registered a refugee claim with UNHCR in Jordan,
but one of the two, a young woman working as a translator in Baghdad's
Green Zone, said she fled to Jordan
because she had received death threats.[83]
She fled Iraq
in September 2005 after an Iraqi National Guardsman at a checkpoint close to
the Green Zone told her, "We know you are a translator for the Americans. We
know who all the translators are." She told Human Rights Watch that she asked
for protection after Jordanian intelligence arrested her and began proceedings
to deport her.

The intelligence officers arrested her at the airport in Amman on November
18,2005(within two weeks of the hotel bombings), when she went to
pick up an American friend. She had just extended her visa the day before and
was legally in Jordan.
Intelligence officers interrogated her and five other Iraqis who had come to
pick up people at the airport that day. They accused her of carrying a false
passport andsaid she was also involved in"carrying out the
explosions." She was transferred to the women's section of the Nadhala Prison
in Juwaida. At the prison, guards denied her permission to make a phone call. She
asked for a lawyer, but they denied her request. She then tried to make a
refugee claim, telling her jailers that she had worked for U.S. companies and the U.S. military in Baghdad and had been threatened. "That is not
our problem," she was told. She was deported on November 27. Human Rights Watch
spoke to her by telephone in Baghdad.
She left soon thereafter for Egypt.[84]

The seconddeportee, a young man, also gave good
reasons for fleeing Iraq
but said that Jordanian police did not provide him any opportunity to explain
his circumstances or to seek protection.[85]
Unknown assailants killed two of his nieces in Iraq for their alleged
collaboration with the Americans.[86]
He is engaged to an American citizen and had an appointment pending with the U.S. consular section in Amman at the time the police arrested him, on
April 16, 2006. The young man said he had gone to the airport to drop off his
uncle, who was flying to the United
States, but police stopped and detained him
at the checkpoint on the airport road. He spent three days in detention, during
which time he made desperate calls to his family members asking for wasta (intervention by people with connections in government). At the
time of his arrest he had overstayed his visa by about three months. He had
been in Jordan for one year,
renewing his visas by exiting and re-entering Jordan. The last time he went to
renew his visa, however, the Jordanians at the Syrian border only gave him a
three-day visa. Hequickly became an overstayer.

In a telephone interview with Human Rights Watch from Mosul, Iraq,
the young deportee said he begged the intelligence officers to let him pay the
JD130 fine, but they refused. He recalled, "There was no questioning. They only
said, 'You will be deported.' They did not ask me if I was afraid to return to Iraq."
He said that he had not known that there was such a thing as a UNHCR
asylum-seeker card. Military guards took him by bus to the border with about 40
other persons. They let them off at the Karama-Trebil crossing, in the middle
of nowhere. He had to find a taxi to Baghdad and
from there make his way back to his home in Mosul. He said that he has no job and no
money, and that he has lost his visa appointment with the U.S. consular section in Amman
and does not know if he can submit a U.S.
visa application in Baghdad.[87]

V. UNHCR and Temporary Protection

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with UNHCR in 1998 that allows the UN refugee agency to exercise
its mandate to recognize refugees with the proviso that it must find places
outside Jordan
to resettle them within six months of recognizing them.[88]
In practice, Jordan
has tolerated the stay of many UNHCR-recognized refugees well beyond the
six-month resettlement deadline.[89]

In response to an anticipated refugee exodus from Iraq following the U.S.-led war, UNHCR in April
2003 declared a temporary protection regime on behalf of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria,
and Lebanon.[90]
UNHCR concluded a Letter of Understanding with the Jordanian government that it
cites as the legal basis for the TPR, but which the Jordanian government
interprets differently.[91]
UNHCR's 2006 Country Operations Plan for Jordan states, "UNHCR continues to
promote the TPR for all Iraqis, which were [sic] formally agreed upon with the
Government of Jordan (GoJ) in a Letter of Understanding signed on April 15,
2003."[92]Jordan,
however, only recognizes the TPR as applying to al-Ruwaishid camp, a closed
facility near the Iraqi border that currently holds fewer than 500 refugees,
mostly Palestinians and Iranian Kurds.[93]
Mukhaimar F. Abu Jamous, the secretary-general of the Ministry of Interior,
told Human Rights Watch that UNHCR's April 2003 statement announcing the TPR
was "a unilateral declaration that we did not recognize."[94]
He said that the Letter of Understanding with UNHCR concerned temporary
protection for refugees in the border area camp, not a broader temporary
protection regime.[95]
Human Rights Watch has obtained a copy of the letter, which supports the
Jordanian reading.

In addition to insisting that it never agreed to the TPR,
Jordan has also communicated to UNHCR that whatever need may have existed for
temporary protection has long since ended. As early as April 2005 the Jordanian
government told UNHCR that it should not apply the TPR "long after the war in Iraq
was over."[96]

UNHCR nevertheless continues to issue the asylum-seeker
cards[97]
and renew them every six months as though the TPR exists, although Jordanian
officials do not recognize these documents for residency status purposes and
the cards provide no benefits, such as work authorization or eligibility for
public assistance. Their sole utility is in the event of arrest to enable the
detained card bearer to ask for a visit from a UNHCR official to conduct a
refugee status determination. Although the term asylum seeker indicates a
pending refugee claim, UNHCR in practice suspended RSDs once it declared the
TPR (except for card holders in detention).

UNHCR took no further action on Iraqi asylum claims after
2003, leaving the people who had been issued asylum-seeker cards in limbo over
their future. It reasoned that refugee screenings would invariably result in
some denials, and it did not want to act in a way that could result in Jordan deporting denied asylum seekers to an
ever more violent Iraq.
Suspending refugee screening meant, however, that Iraqis would not be recognized
as refugees and thus UNHCR would be unable to refer them for third-country
resettlement.

UNHCR also had a practical reason for suspending RSDs: its
resources did not remotely match the requirements of an influx of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis into Jordan,[98]
and there was no possibility of a durable solution for large numbers of
recognized refugees. Two such solutions would have been resettlement outside
the region, which is at the discretion of third-country governments, or local
integration, which Jordan
had categorically ruled out.[99]
The United States,
the largest refugee resettlement country at the time, had declared a moratorium
on the resettlement of any Iraqi refugees following the September 11, 2001,
attacks (which remained in effect until being officially lifted in April 2005).[100]
In 2005, the United States
admitted 12 Iraqi refugees referred by UNHCR-Amman and admitted another six
persons on family reunification grounds without UNHCR involvement.[101]

In 2005 UNHCR facilitated the resettlement of 436 people out
of Jordan, of which 158 were
Iraqis and Palestinians from Iraq
and 191 were Iranian Kurds. Only 212 of the refugees resettled in 2005 were
from the urban caseload; the rest were from the Ruwaishid camp. Although a
slightly larger number of refugees was resettled from Jordan in 2004 (591 individuals),
the number of Iraqis was much smaller (68). The overwhelming bulk of refugees
resettled from Jordan
that year, 410, were Iranian Kurds.[102]Australia, Canada, and New Zealand were the principal countries
of resettlement in 2004 and 2005.[103]
UNHCR has referred no Iraqi refugees for resettlement to the United Kingdom since the war began.[104]
Virtually all the urban Iraqis referred for resettlement have been "old
caseload" refugees from the Saddam Hussein era.

While the temporary protection regime has been in effect,
UNHCR-Amman has conducted refugee status determinations only in the most
exceptional cases, usually for detained registered asylum seekers who face
deportation. Its recognition of Iraqi refugees fell from 2,429 persons in 2000
to 1,904 in 2001. From 632 refugee recognitions in 2002, the number dropped to
246 in 2003, the year UNHCR instituted the TPR. UNHCR-Amman recognized 41 Iraqi
refugees in 2004 and 22 in 2005.[105]
The overwhelming majority of Iraqi refugees in Jordan remain unrecognized.

Registration for temporary protection-Asylum cards

Only a small fraction of Iraqis in Jordan-17,000-have registered with
UNHCR as asylum seekers, and a miniscule number (712) are recognized refugees,
most of which are cases from the Saddam Hussein era.[106]
Although UNHCR-Amman is conducting some refugee status determinations on a
selective basis, it only has four officers authorized to do so.[107]
The office appears, therefore, to be operating as though this is a normal flow
refugee situation and not a mass influx. However, even a doubling or tripling
of officers authorized to conduct RSDs would not keep pace with the number of
registered asylum seekers, let alone the hundreds of thousands in need of
temporary protection. Also, the presupposition of the 1998 Memorandum of
Understanding-that UNHCR would promptly find resettlement places for all
recognized refugees outside Jordan-is not realistic because the number of
refugees seeking resettlement (if resettlement were to be a viable option)
would far outstrip the available places offered by countries outside the
region.

UNHCR-Amman officials said that they have not detected a
dramatic increase in recent registrations at their office. They also caution
that some of the Iraqis newly registering with UNHCR are not new arrivals, but
in some cases have been long-term residents of Jordan.[108]
Applications to UNHCR for asylum are not necessarily an indicator of the size
of the refugee flow. For example, more Iraqis now seem to be rejected at the
border before entering Jordan.
The UNHCR office in Amman is also not easily accessible or well known among
Iraqis, and is located in a relatively remote residential area of Amman rather
than in one of the busy centers of the city-even with detailed directions,
Human Rights Watch had difficulty locating the office.[109]
A number of Iraqis expressed distrust of UNHCR to Human Rights Watch, and
particularly expressed fear that UNHCR would not protect the confidentiality of
matters discussed in RSD interviews. Social services case workers confirmed
that many of their Iraqi clients feel this way.[110]
UNHCR-Amman told Human Rights Watch that its staff counsels refugees and asylum
seekers on confidentiality matters and pays particular attention to ensuring
confidentiality throughout the registration and RSD process.[111]

Iraqis in Jordan
also have little understanding (with good reason) of what rights or benefits a
UNHCR asylum-seeker card confers. Human Rights Watch interviewed Iraqis who did
not renew their asylum-seeker cards because they found they did not regard the
cards as holding any sway with Jordanian authorities. A Shi`a barber from SadrCity, Baghdad, who said he fled Iraq in January 2004 when
extremists threatened to kill him for shaving his customers' beards (which the
extremists opposed on religious grounds), said:

After I overstayed my visa, I went to UNHCR and got the
[asylum-seeker] paper from them. But when the police came to raid this area
[Raghadan, Amman],
they said to me that the UNHCR paper doesn't mean anything to them, that it is
useless [UNHCR] told me to come back in six months to renew [the asylum-seeker
card]. But I didn't go back, as the document is useless.[112]

Despite the fact that asylum-seeker registration carries no
social benefits and appears, at best, to provide barely minimal protection, the
number of Iraqi asylum seekers UNHCR registered nevertheless rose from a total
of 13,000 in September 2005 to 17,000 by April 2006.[113]
The office projects that it will register 20,000 by the end of 2006.[114]

Complementary Protection: Another Approach in the
Absence of a TPR

In the relatively few cases UNHCR-Amman assesses Iraqi
refugee claims, it exclusively applies the 1951 Refugee Convention's
"well-founded fear of being persecuted" standard, which does not recognize
refugees fleeing conditions of generalized violence. If Jordan detains more asylum-seeker card holders
and UNHCR conducts more refugee status determinations, then UNHCR's exclusive
use of the Refugee Convention standard raises the likelihood that it will
reject more asylum seekers, and Jordan
will deport them to Iraq.
Restricting itself to a narrow Refugee Convention refugee definition limits the
tools at UNHCR's disposal if the Jordanian government continues to decline to
treat rejected asylum seekers with "flexibility."[115]

However, the UNHCR Executive Committee foresees that the
Refugee Convention refugee definition should not be the sole basis for UNHCR
operations where there are de facto refugees in need of protection. In particular,
in October 2005 UNHCR's Ex Com issued a Conclusion (ExCom Conclusion 103) that
encouraged "the use of complementary forms of protection for individuals in
need of international protection who do not meet the refugee definition under
the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol," and that states granting
complementary protection should ensure "the human rights and fundamental
freedoms of such persons without discrimination."[116]

The UNHCR office in Amman
told Human Rights Watch that it complies with ExCom Conclusion 103 when
conducting RSDs because it recognizes as refugees persons who "fulfill the
criteria for refugee status under the 1951 Conventionrather than being
accorded a complementary form of protection."[117]
While ExCom Conclusion 103 does encourage an inclusive interpretation of the
refugee definition in the Refugee Convention, the Conclusion also explicitly
encourages the extension of protection to those needing it who do not fit the
Convention definition.[118]
In this regard, UNHCR-Amman says that it is "encouraging the Government of
Jordan to use and apply'complementary forms of protection for individuals in
need of international protection who do not meet the refugee definition under
the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol.'"[119]
This begs the question whether in those instances where UNHCR-Amman still
conducts RSDs-and where the consequence of its rejection is that Jordan deports
rejected asylum seekers to Iraq-it is willing to extend a complementary
protection to Iraqis who do not meet the strict Refugee Convention definition
but who have legitimate fears of generalized violence if returned.

ExCom Conclusion 103 also cautions that "temporary
protection, without formally according refugee status, as a specific
provisional response to situations of mass influx providing emergency
protection from refoulement, should
be clearly distinguished from other forms of international protection."[120]
This provision has relevance to Jordan's
situation. "Temporary protection" is internationally recognized as an expedient
in response to mass influxes that overwhelm individual asylum systems. A
temporary protection regime does not provide refugee or other status per se,
but rather provides a mechanism for guaranteeing access to territory,
protection, and assistance until such status can be determined. Complementary
protection, on the other hand, like Refugee Convention refugee status itself,
offers a formal, legal recognition of protection need to those fleeing violence
and persecution but who would not be strict Refugee Convention refugees.

In this case the Jordanian government does not have an
asylum procedure, so a bureaucracy does not exist to be overwhelmed by a mass
influx. However, the terms of the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding authorized
UNHCR to provide international protection to persons falling within its mandate
in Jordan.
The UNHCR office in Amman
unquestionably has been overwhelmed by the mass influx and lacks the capacity
to provide individualized status determinations. UNHCR clearly has a reasonable
basis, therefore, to justify its operation of a temporary protection regime,
and all efforts must be directed to enlist the support of the Jordanian
government to recognize the TPR and to provide its own protection and
assistance to Iraqis escaping the war.

But if the Jordanian government continues to reject a
temporary protection regime, UNHCR-Amman, under the terms of ExCom Conclusion
103,[121]
should not only be applying an inclusive definition of refugee, but should be
ensuring that de facto refugees are provided with status so that they can be
afforded complementary protection. UNHCR-Amman's reservations about conducting
refugee status determinations out of concern that it might reject large numbers
of asylum seekers who will then be subject to deportation could be addressed if
it applied an inclusive Convention definition and extended refugee status to
others in need of international protection so they could benefit from
protection against deportation and potential resettlement.

Ideally, Jordan
should accede to the Refugee Convention, establish its own asylum system, and
provide protection to refugees based on both the Refugee Convention definition
and to those fleeing war and generalized violence. That being unlikely for the
foreseeable future, the Jordanian government could still take responsibility
for Iraqi refugees based on its own, ad hoc temporary protection regime. The
legal basis for doing so would be the Law on Residence and Foreigners' Affairs,
which includes a provision that gives the minister of interior the discretion
to waive normal immigration requirements "on account of special considerations
connected with international or humanitarian courtesy or of the right to
political asylum."[122]

The law's recognition of the right to seek asylum and its
allowance for international and humanitarian considerations provides wide
latitude for the minister of interior to exercise discretion to protect Iraqis
and other foreigners fleeing war and persecution. This statutory provision
provides clear authority in domestic law to embark on a temporary protection
regime, even in the absence of a refugee law.

VI. Surviving in Jordan

Because of Jordan's
"silent treatment," most Iraqis in Jordan live a life at the margin of
society, without proper legal status, unable to work legally, and unable to
access subsidized social services such as education, health care, and housing. Jordan
argues it does not have the resources or the obligation to provide subsidized
social services and work opportunities to Iraqi refugees. However, the
Jordanian authorities' refusal to formally recognize the extent of the Iraqi
refugee flow into Jordan and
to ask the international community for assistance with the burden also ensures
that international resources are not made available to Jordan.

Visas and Residence Permits

Iraqis only need a valid passport to enter Jordan.[123]
Immigration officials at ports of entry have discretion to decide the duration
of stay based on the purpose of the visit.[124]
They have normally issued one-month visas to Iraqis at the border (although, as
shown in this report, currently they frequently deny Iraqis such visas and turn
them back at the border). Inside Jordan, the Department of Residency
in the Ministry of Interior may extend visas for three months, upon request.[125]
Iraqis can also renew their one- or three-month visas by briefly leaving and
re-entering Jordan-most
commonly across the Syrian border, but also to Iraq. Saudi
Arabia and Israel,
Jordan's
other neighboring countries, require Iraqis to obtain pre-approved visas at
their consulates or embassies, and rarely issue them.

After the hotel bombings, visa practices changed, and
Jordanian border officials began issuing Iraqis only two- or three-day visas at
the Syrian border, and rejecting more Iraqis at the Iraqi border.[126]
The visa-renewal route of crossing into Syria
and back, while not entirely closed, made most Iraqis almost immediate
overstayers shortly after re-entering Jordan. An Iraqi woman with a UNHCR
asylum-seeker card explained why she is now residing illegally in Jordan:
"I used to go every three months to the Syrian border to renew my visa. It cost
20 JD to go. In October 2005, I stopped going after they only gave me a 48-hour
visa. I asked why, but they refused to explain."[127]

Less frequently, the Jordanian Ministry of Interior issues
one-year residence permits upon the recommendation of the Director of Public
Security, which it may, then, renew annually.[128]
There are various ways to qualify for residence permits. One way is to
establish proof of a secure and legal source of income. An Iraqi from Baghdad told Human Rights
Watch that an applicant must deposit the equivalent of US$75,000 in a Jordanian
bank account, which remains frozen, and a further US$75,000 in a current
account.[129]
Another way to obtain residence permits is through work permits based on an
employment contract certified by the Ministry of Labor (as not being in
competition with the Jordanian labor market). Jobs open to non-Jordanians
officially include scientific or vocational skills for which Jordan has no equivalent, but
which, in practice, also include unskilled jobs that no Jordanians are willing
to take. One-year residence permits are also available for students admitted to
educational institutions or disabled persons or minor children whose only
provider legally resides in Jordan.[130]

Despite this new policy of shortening the validity of visas
for Iraqis that forces them almost immediately into illegality, Jordan
has not enforced immigration laws against overstayers in a consistent manner. Yet,
none of the Iraqis Human Rights Watch interviewed complained of police
irregularities, and many Iraqis even praised the police as treating them
humanely and without discrimination even though they are working and residing
illegally.

Nonetheless, living illegally is taking a heavy toll on
Iraqis living in Jordan.
Many de facto refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch are traumatized by
their experiences, sometimes weeping as they retold their ordeals. Their
suffering in Iraq
often formed only one part of their traumatic experience. Many de facto
refugees told of the added burden of being forced to live illegally and in
poverty in Jordan.
A disabled, elderly woman said:

I live illegally. I owe 750 JD to the government [in fines
for overstaying my visa]. It makes me sick inside myself. Thank God for Jordan.
They opened their door for Iraqis. But this is not my country. I miss Baghdad. I love Iraq. I'm
in a big jail. We all want to live legally. We want temporary residency. We
will go back to Iraq.
We were middle class people, but now we are poor. There are thousands poor like
me. We can't pay the thousands to renew our residency.[131]

Employment/Unemployment

Amongst the Iraqi population are those who have the
financial means to leave Iraq
and escape the life-threatening insecurity. Indeed, many Jordanians view Iraqis
in Jordan as rich people who
drive expensive cars and live in luxurious West Amman
apartments, driving up housing prices for everyone else. Economic analysts have
attributed a boom in the Jordanian economy to the influx of Iraqi capital since
the beginning of the war. Iraqi investments have helped spur economic growth in
Jordan
for the first half of 2006 to nearly 8 percent, double the growth rate prior to
the war.[132]The Jordan Times reported estimates
in March 2005 that the arrival of 50,000 Iraqi families had pumped $2 billion
into the Jordanian economy, which "clearly contributed to accelerating the
cycle of the economy."[133]
While there are certainly conspicuously wealthy Iraqis who have invested
heavily in the Jordanian economy, most Iraqis live in the margins eking out a
living, but with neither employment authorization nor savings.[134]

An NGO social service provider with the International
Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), an agency funded specifically to identify
and serve "extremely vulnerable individuals" among Iraqis living in Jordan,
observed, "In the first year of our program, 2003, Iraqis came here with far
greater resources. Many only approached us if they were in need of expensive
medical operations. Last year, however, we started seeing people arriving from
the border with almost nothing."[135]
A handful of nongovernmental charitable organizations and churches assist the
most needy and vulnerable among the Iraqis living in the country. The Jordanian
government does not provide assistance to refugees and asylum seekers, and they
are not eligible for the social services available to Jordanian citizens.[136]

Jordan's
official unemployment rate is 15.5 percent, according to the Jordanian Ministry
of Labor's 2005 annual report, a 2 percent increase over 2004.[137]
Although Iraqis are popularly perceived as taking jobs away from Jordanians,
the Ministry of Labor's report on unemployment for 2005, summarized in the Jordan Times, "criticize[d] Jordanians
for refusing to take up jobs performed by foreign workers."[138]
The Ministry cited the refusal of Jordanians to take menial jobs because of
"low pay and a culture of shame, which is widespread among citizens."[139]
Those are the jobs over-qualified Iraqis are now often filling.

Foreigners must lodge an application with the Ministry of
Labor to apply for work authorization. This procedure is separate from applying
for residency permits. The Ministry maintains a list of jobs open to
foreigners. If a foreigner finds an employer and presents a contract, the
Ministry will issue him or her a work permit. The Ministry of Labor issued
26,000 work permits to foreign workers in 2005.[140]
Most, 31.4 percent, were employed in the service sector, 27.2 percent in
agriculture, 25.5 percent in industry, and 15.9 percent in construction.[141]
There are also tens of thousands of Syrians and Egyptians working in Jordan's
agricultural and construction sectors. The Ministry of Interior told Human
Rights Watch that, once a foreigner has an offer for a qualifying job, it will
issue him or her a one-year, renewable, residence permit. "It is not a big
deal," an MOI official told Human Rights Watch.[142]

It was, however, among the "biggest deals" for Iraqis in
Jordan whom Human Rights Watch interviewed. Not having a work permit leaves all
those who need to work vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers. Some
Iraqis without residence or work permits were unwilling or too afraid to work
illegally, instead depending on their dwindling savings and money relatives
living abroad sent to support them. Although some interviewees said that
employers did not exploit them for working illegally, others said they were
being forced to work at positions for which they were over-qualified or
underpaid. Some single women, particularly members of religious minorities,
said that they encounter difficulties in the work place, including underpayment
and sexual harassment. An unmarried Christian woman from Basra said:

Most of the places I work, because I am Iraqi and don't
have work permission, they wait until the end of the month, and then they fire
me without pay. This happened to me four times. Now I started working for a
doctor for 70 JD a month, a very small salary. I have to cover my head and he
said I should convert to Islam, because he is religious. He insults me, saying
I am ugly. I work from 9 AM to 9 PM, sometimes more. Another Jordanian girl
works there also. She only works short hours and gets 200 JD. I asked the
doctor why he pays me less, and he said he likes her more and she is Jordanian.[143]

Some Iraqi men also face discrimination. A Shi`a woman from
Najaf said:

My husband has a college degree in agriculture, but he
worked in construction illegally. He did day labor. It was very difficult because
the income was irregular. Oftentimes, after the work was finished, they just
told him to go and [did] not pay him, since he can't go to the police.[144]

Jordanian authorities have since deported him after
detaining him for working without a permit.

An Iraqi neurologist from Tal `Afar, who escaped to Jordan
in July 2005 after his name was put on a death list, initially received only a
three-day visa. He found various clinic jobs and managed to upgrade his visa to
one month, then two months, and finally obtained a one-year residence permit. He
now works at the Karak public hospital where he works as a specialist, but at
the salary of a junior doctor. "Jordan
is a quiet country, and things are easy for us," he told Human Rights Watch,
"but they exploit us. If I could, I would return back to Iraq because I have 14 years
seniority there as a doctor. But every day, my colleagues call me to say it is
not safe to return to Tal `Afar."[145]
Two young Iraqi doctors told Human Rights Watch that newly qualified Iraqi doctors
have even greater obstacles to employment in Jordan; they said that Jordanian
hospitals require them to pay for internships, during which time they receive
no salary.[146]

A Shi`a artist and interior designer from Baghdad's
al-Yarmuk neighborhood, who has refugee status with UNHCR but no residency
permit in Jordan, and who has been waiting for years to be resettled abroad,
said:

I work individually, not for a firm. I get exploited
because if I were a Jordanian I could charge much more for my work. As a
refugee, I often do not get paid or just receive a token amount. I don't care
so much about the money. I just want to be resettled elsewhere because my
situation here is bad. I am not in charge of my own life.[147]

While many complain of being underpaid, others, especially
those without permission to work, have difficulty finding jobs at all or are
too afraid to work illegally. A Mandaean artisan from Baghdad
who had been severely persecuted before fleeing the country told Human Rights
Watch, "I'm not working here in Jordan.
I am not doing anything. We have some offers for work, but I am afraid of the
police. The work is illegal; I am afraid they will catch me, and then I will be
forced to return to Iraq."[148]
A mechanical engineer who fled Iraq
after being accused of collaborating with the Americans said:

I don't have a job in Jordan. I have tried to find a job,
but it is always, "Iraqi? No Job!" Of course, I need a work permit to work
legally in Jordan,
but they don't give work permits, especially in my field of mechanical
engineering. There are Iraqis who work illegally, but in simple jobs, such as
painting and construction. I know one Iraqi who worked here for 14 years in
illegal jobs. If the police catch you, they deport you. I know people this has
happened to. They get a permanent rejection in their passport. I know people
whom this happened to, even if they had a UNHCR card.[149]

Those who work illegally live in constant fear of discovery
and deportation. The barber from SadrCity, Baghdad,
cited above, said, "Our greatest problem is that we are not allowed to work. How
can I live without work? I work [illegally] in this barber shop. The police
raids make me afraid, because the UNHCR paper doesn't protect me."[150]

While Jordan as a sovereign state has a right to regulate
employment laws and access to employment, for example by a system of work
visas, Jordan's human rights obligations require that no one arbitrarily be
excluded from the right to earn a living and in particular that long-term
residents of Jordan enjoy the right to earn a living.

Article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which Jordan has ratified without
reservations, recognizes the right to work, "which includes the right of
everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses
or accepts."[151]
Article 7 guarantees equal pay for equal work "fair wages and equal
remuneration for work of equal value without distinction of any kind."[152]
These rights are guaranteed to "everyone" without regard to citizenship or
residence status.

Article 2.2 of the ICESCR states that parties to the
Covenant must guarantee that rights holders can exercise their rights "without
discrimination of any kind as to race, color, sex, language, religion, policy
or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."[153]

Jordan
is also a party to the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination (CERD).[154]
In 2004, the CERD Committee, responsible for overseeing states' implementation
of their treaty obligations to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination,
issued a recommendation relating to discrimination against non-citizens. The
Committee acknowledged states' scope to differentiate between citizens and
non-citizens, for example in the right to participate in and stand for
elections, but said that human rights are, in principle, to be enjoyed by all
persons. States parties are obliged to guarantee equality between citizens and
non-citizens in the enjoyment of civil, political, economic, and social rights
to the extent recognized under international law.[155]
States were specifically called on to remove obstacles that prevent the
enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights by non-citizens, notably in
the areas of education, housing, employment, and health[156]and to take measures to eliminate discrimination against non-citizens in
relation to working conditions and requirements.[157]

Education

Although the Jordanian government does not bar Iraqi
children without residency permits from going to school outright, its
deliberate policy of misstatements and mixed signals has left Iraqis without
residency permits confused and apprehensive about their children's rights. This
has deterred them from enrolling their children in school.

In interviews with Human Rights Watch, Iraqi nationals in Jordan
consistently identified lack of access to education as a major problem facing
their children. One woman described the low level of school attendance among
Iraqi children in her apartment building as follows: "The building where I live
is full of Iraqi people and all their children are staying home. Nobody goes to
school."[158]

The Assyrian woman who testified, above, about the arrest of
her son and the family's deportation to Syria,
said that in 11 years in Jordan
her older children had never gone to school. "The government school would not
accept them because we did not have residency permits," she said. "The youngest
one went to the 'service' in the informal school [see below]. The older girls
cannot write or read; they didn't go to school at all. My son went to primary
school in Iraq,
but never went to school here."[159]

The Ministry of Interior announced in August 2005 that it
would prohibit Iraqi children without permanent residence permits from
enrolling in public or private school for the 2005-06 school year.[160]
The announcement caused widespread anxiety among the Iraqi community illegally
residing in Jordan.
That announcement applied to Arabs without permanent residence, but then carved
out exceptions for Gazans, Syrians, Egyptians, and Yemenis. In effect, that
decision seemed intended to keep only Iraqis out of Jordanian schools. Under
pressure from national and international children's rights groups, the
government rescinded its decision shortly after announcing it.[161]
By that time, however, the damage had been done and many Iraqi parents kept
their children out of school. One observer commented, "The laws governing the
right of nonresidents to attend public schools have been swinging back and forth
like a pendulum."[162]

Prior to the 2006-07 school year, the Jordanian government
again sent mixed messages regarding the right of Iraqi children to attend
public or private schools. Initially, the Ministry of Education announced that
it would not allow foreign children to attend public schools and that it would
allow only those who possess residence permits to attend private schools, with
flexibility for exceptional cases.[163]
On April 20, 2006, however, the Ministry said that it would soon reverse its
decision and allow Arab children with residence permits to attend public
school.[164]
Subsequently, UNICEF-Amman informed Human Rights Watch:

The Jordanian government has issued guidelines not to allow
any foreigner who doesn't have a residency permit to enroll in public schools. Furthermore,
starting next scholastic year, foreigners who have valid residency permits will
be charged fees for enrolling in public schools.[165]

In a meeting with Human Rights Watch, Ministry of Interior
officials were unable or unwilling to specify the government's policy for the
2006-07 school year.[166]
The officials intimated that the government would be flexible in handling
applications by families without residency permits for permission to attend
school in exceptional cases, explaining that individual Iraqi families could
approach the MOI for an exemption if schools excluded their children. At the
same time, the officials said that the 60,000 Iraqi students who attended
public schools last year were a cause for severe overcrowding-50 students in a
classroom-and an unacceptable strain on resources.[167]The number of Iraqi students cited by
the Ministry of Interior probably refers predominantly to Iraqis who do have
residency permits. There are no available estimates for the number of Iraqi children
without residency permits who may not be attending school at all.

At the time of the Human Rights Watch visit, parents, school
administrators, government, NGO, and UN officials gave conflicting views about
what they thought the government's education policy would be for the 2006-07
academic year. Even the views of experts regarding the government's policy on
foreign children in school appeared to reflect what they had read or heard in
local media reports. Many speculated that the Jordanian government would not
allow Iraqi children without permanent residence permits to attend government
schools and that they would also put private schools under increased scrutiny. One
Iraqi woman, a mother of three children, told Human Rights Watch that she
received a notice from the Ministry of Education saying that she will not be
able to enroll her children in private school during the 2006-07 school year,
and she also received a phone call from the director of her children's school,
confirming that it will not enroll her children.[168]

A few days before the 2006-07 school year began, the
Jordanian press reported on a conversation between Jordan's
prime minister, Marouf Bakhit, and a visiting Iraqi dignitary, in which the
prime minister said that Jordan
was taking measures to facilitate residency permit procedures for Iraqis.[169]
This, he suggested, would enable their children to attend school. But the prime
minister's remarks were too late, too vague, and too poorly publicized to
inform Iraqi parents about the steps they might take to allow their children to
go to school.

The ambiguity of the government's position with regard to
education for Iraqi children has created great uncertainty and anxiety among
Iraqi nationals living in Jordan.
School administrators and teachers of a private school for Iraqis-which calls
itself a "service" and not a "school" because the government does not recognize
it as such-struggled to explain the government's policy. "Six or eight months
ago, the government said that Iraqis would not be allowed to go to public
school without a resident permit," said the school administrator. "Then they
said Iraqis could stay in school just this year, but that next year no
foreigners would be allowed in any schools, public or private. Then, they
switched the policy a week before the school year started. The parents were
angry. Then last month, they made a big announcement that no one without
permanent residency will be able to attend public or private school." He
commented, "Sometimes they change their mind. I think they want to make life
harder here."[170]
The small school, which functions in a converted storefront, teaches 350
children who study in two different shifts. The school's teachers are mostly
volunteer Iraqi parents. It is not authorized to offer its graduates a
certificate or a diploma recognized in Jordan, despite following the
Jordanian curriculum.

The school administrator explained why Iraqi children would
go to his badly under-resourced school that cannot provide a degree despite
still having the option of attending public schools. He said that the Iraqi
children feel safe in his school, particularly Christian and Mandaean children.
He said that Iraqis prefer to send their children to private schools, but those
who cannot afford to pay tuition come to his school, which is free. He also
suggested that many Iraqis do not know that they can send their children to
public school because of confusing government policy.[171]

The Shi`a parent of a child in a private school told Human
Rights Watch, "One day, the principal threw the Iraqi children out of the
public school. My daughter refused to go back because she felt too humiliated,
so we were forced to pay for a private school. Caritas pays half the fee. School
is a psychological benefit for the children. It is the only place they can
breathe fresh air. Psychologically, they can't wait for the next day to go to
school. On vacation days, I see them getting more anxious." He said that the
government's announcement that children would not be allowed to go to school
next year has had a devastating impact on his daughter. "She wanted to be a
scientist, a doctor, but now they have cut her wings."[172]
Another Shi`a parent explained that Jordanian schoolmates regularly teased her
children. "My children also suffer because other children say they are Shi`a,
hence unbelievers (kafir), and that
'You cooperate with America,
so you deserve what you are facing.'"[173]

Article 22 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC), which Jordan ratified on May 24, 1991, provides that states parties
"take appropriate measures to ensure that a child who is seeking refugee status
or who is considered a refugeeshallreceive appropriate protection and
humanitarian assistance in the enjoyment of the applicable rights set forth in
the present Convention."[174]
Among the rights enumerated in the CRC is the right of a child to education,
including compulsory primary education "available free to all."[175]
As a party to CERD, Jordan
must also "ensure that public educational institutions are open to non-citizens
and children of undocumented immigrants" in Jordan.[176]Jordan is obliged by its
international commitments to ensure all Iraqi children have access to free
primary education in Jordan,
regardless of their status.

Health Care

Many Jordanian citizens, including government employees and
military veterans, are enrolled in a national health insurance program not open
to foreigners, who must rely on private insurance to cover healthcare costs.[177]
Such insurance is expensive and frequently excludes costly treatments and
surgical procedures. Royal decrees often help Jordanian citizens faced with
catastrophic health problems requiring expensive care, but such decrees are
rarely available for foreigners.[178]

The high cost of health insurance means that Iraqis operate
on a pay-as-you-go basis for most health care. "If I get sick, I have to go to
the private clinic," said an Iraqi Shi`a man in Karak. "I have had to go many
times. If I go to the public clinic, I also have to pay, because I don't have
any insurance."[179]

Jordan's
public healthcare system is state-subsidized, including government hospitals
and clinics and regulated health-related fees and prices, which benefits
everyone without insurance-citizen or foreigner-equally. But the subsidized
governmental healthcare system is overburdened and provides only basic care. Because
they lack insurance, many Iraqis are not able to cover even the state-regulated
fees. An Iraqi woman told Human Rights Watch, "I can't afford the expenses of
medical care, so I just let nature take its course. Several times, I had low
blood pressure problems. My neighbors sent me to the hospital because I was
very sick, but I couldn't pay for hospitalization, so I checked myself out."[180]

A few private, church-based health clinics cater to Iraqi nationals.
The pastor running one such clinic told Human Rights Watch, "We get very little
financial support from the local community, and the government does nothing at
all."[181]
His clinic is primarily funded by donations from abroad. An International Catholic
Migration Committee (ICMC) service provider said, "Medical costs are the
biggest problem we face. Health care is extremely expensive here."[182]

A former contractor for U.S.
forces in Iraq who had to
flee with his family after insurgent groups threatened him explained to Human
Rights Watch that the health costs his family faces in Jordan are his biggest expense. When
his wife had to give birth, they had to provide the hospital with a US$500
deposit before it admitted her, and ultimately had to pay US$1,000 for the
birth. "They asked us for our insurance card, and we said we didn't have one,
and they said we had to pay cash." Two months later, an urgent operation on the
newborn cost another US$1,000. With no insurance, no job, and hence no income
in Jordan,
such costs quickly became unaffordable.[183]

Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) calls on all states parties to achieve the
full realization of the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable
standard of physical and mental health.[184]
The UN general comments on the implementation of Article 12 say that access to
health facilities and the payment for health goods and services must be "based
on the principle of equity" and available "without discrimination on any of the
prohibited grounds," noting that this applies "especially to the most
vulnerable or marginalized sections of the population, in law and in fact."[185]
Parties to CERD must also respect the right of non-citizens to an adequate standard
of physical and mental health.[186]Jordan
is a party to both ICESCR and CERD.

Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC), to which Jordan
is also a party, recognizes the right of all children to access health care
services. Article 39 calls for appropriate measures to promote physical and
psychological recovery and social integration for child victims of armed
conflicts and torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment.[187]

Human Rights Watch does not suggest that Jordan is not in compliance with ICESCR, CERD or
the CRC with respect to health care for Iraqi nationals living in Jordan,
but notes that these instruments refer to progressive realization of health
needs. We encourage the Jordanian authorities to support and facilitate the
activities of private charities that provide supplementary health care for
Iraqis in Jordan
and to use royal decrees to help Iraqi nationals faced with severe health
problems.

Housing

There is no evidence of homelessness among Iraqis in Jordan
despite their large-scale and concentrated influx and the fact that many are
struggling to make ends meet because they are not allowed to work. Iraqis in Jordan
are urban refugees and do not live in collective centers or refugee camps.

Iraq's
middle class-people engaged in commerce, professionals, and others who had
sufficient resources to leave the country-form the bulk of Iraqis in Jordan.[188]
An NGO service provider working with a client population of extremely
vulnerable individuals said, "Iraqis are moving to worse and worse housing. They
will move from house to house, but they would not live in a collective center
or become homeless. There is tremendous solidarity, even among Jordanian
neighbors, and everyone finds something."[189]

Better-off Iraqis find apartments to rent or buy.[190]
Jordanians complain that housing prices in Amman have skyrocketed because of the influx
of Iraqis, some of whom are able to pay the higher housing prices.[191]
But many Iraqis are struggling to meet the high rent payments. A nearly blind
Iraqi woman living on her own in Amman who has overstayed her residence permit
and does not have the right to work said, "They make the rent prices higher and
higher for Iraqis. They use us to make the prices higher than they deserve."[192]
A watchmaker from the Adamiya neighborhood of Baghdad,
now living in Amman,
said, "I'm living in an apartment that costs 140 JD per month. It is more than
a Jordanian would pay, of course. My Jordanian friends say the price should be
70 JD per month."[193]

The government's laissez-faire
attitude with regard to housing, education, health, and even employment is
particularly difficult for the disabled and other vulnerable groups. But some
Iraqis living illegally in Jordan
manage pretty well under these circumstances, and credit Jordanian officials
for looking the other way. The Shi`a man from Missan Governorate (quoted above)
whose wife and children are in Iraq and cannot join him, and who has been
living illegally in Jordan since 1998 and could be deported at any time,
praised both the police and the Jordanians he deals with on a daily basis:

I work for some shop. The owner pays me the same salary as
a Jordanian. I have a private apartment, and I pay the same rent as a
Jordanian. The police know who I am, but probably the higher authorities tell
them not to interfere. Sometimes they regard us as guests and deal with us in a
humanitarian way.[194]

VII. Vulnerable Groups

Jordan's
"silent treatment" of Iraqi refugees is based, in part, on a denial that Iraqis
residing in Jordan
are, in fact, refugees. A Jordanian official encapsulated the government's
stance when he told Human Rights Watch that Jordan
was not facing a refugee problem at all, but rather one of "illegal
immigration, no different from what the United States faces with Mexicans."[195]
The government's communication to UNHCR in April 2005 that UNHCR should apply
its temporary protection regime to Iraqis "long after the war in Iraq
was over," further reveals the government's conscious attempt to ignore the causes
of refugee flight as a way of avoiding responsibility to provide protection or
assistance to the victims of war and persecution. The fact that UNHCR accords
its recognition to only 712 out of at least 500,000 Iraqis living in Jordan
provides little counterweight to the government's assertions that the large
population of Iraqis on its soil are not refugees.[196]

The purpose of this paper-at the most basic level-is to show
that many, if not the overwhelming majority, of the more than a half million
Iraqis living in Jordan, are refugees, despite the fact neither the government
nor UNHCR has formally recognized them as such, and that they need to be
protected.

De facto refugees flee Iraq for a variety of reasons,
first and foremost, to escape generalized violence and insecurity. But many
groups are targeted for particular reasons, including ethnic cleansing. De
facto Iraqi refugees in Jordan
come from all walks of life and diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds. In
this respect, they represent and reflect patterns of persecution and violence
within Iraq.[197]
They include people who fled during the Saddam Hussein era and who still fear
return, as well as people who newly arrive at the border.

Most of the Iraqi refugees registered with UNHCR prior to
2003 were Shi`a.[198]
Since April 2003, there has been a steady increase of religious minorities,
principally Christians and Mandaeans (a religion whose adherents follow the
teachings of John the Baptist).[199]
Lately, as sectarian violence has escalated in Iraq,
the office has seen an increase in Sunnis fleeing Iraq.[200]

Categories at presumptive risk of persecution in Iraq at the present time include Sunnis and
Shi`a who reside in locations clearly dominated by the other group, such as Samarra', Ba'quba, Abu Ghraib, Baghdad,
and Basra, as
well as families in Sunni/Shi`a mixed marriages. But even these categories do
not adequately define the at-risk populations in Iraq. Almost all areas of the
country are dangerous; particular hotspots include Baghdad, Mahmudiya and the towns
30 kilometers south on the highway to Hilla, as well as Ramadi, Falluja,
Haditha, Tal `Afar, and Mosul. An objective assessment of the risks would
suggest that persons fleeing such areas-if not the country as a whole-should be
protected at least on a temporary basis.

People fleeing sectarian Sunni-Shi`a violence are
represented among the newest arrivals, particularly since the escalation of
violence and ethnic- and religious-based forced displacement in the aftermath
of the February 22, 2006, bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra', Iraq, a
site revered by the Shi`a.[201]
In the first two months following that bombing, an estimated 81,000 people were
forcibly displaced from their homes, though most remained displaced within Iraq.[202]
This displacement, so far, has largely remained internal because the major
movements have been of Iraqis living in mixed towns and neighborhoods moving
into areas where their religious group predominates.[203]

Perpetrators of attacks leading to displacement involve both
Sunni-on-Shi`a attacks by insurgent groups, such as the Al-Qaeda Organization
in Mesopotamia and the Partisans of the Sunna
Army, and Shi`a-on-Sunni attacks by government-backed militias, such as the
Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization. The International Crisis Group observes,
"Sectarian passions are inflamed on both sides with each gruesome attack or
discovery of mutilated bodies, an almost daily occurrence."[204]

Human Rights Watch encountered de facto refugees in Jordan who fled threats and violence related to
their real or imputed association with the U.S.
military or government forces or other foreign forces in Iraq, including private,
nongovernmental entities. Insurgent groups in Iraq threaten as collaborators both
Iraqis who work for foreigners as well as those holding Iraqi government or
political posts.[205]
English interpreters have been particularly vulnerable, including those who
work for international humanitarian agencies and members of the media.[206]

Most de facto Iraqi refugees in Jordan have middle class, urban
origins.[207]
This background has not only made them more likely than their poorer
compatriots to be targeted in Iraq for persecution and for common crime, such
as robbery and kidnapping for ransom, but has also provided them the resources
to travel the long road to Jordan, cross the border, and sustain themselves in
exile. Women of middle class origin, particularly members of religious
minorities, have not only been subject to attack in Iraq because of their mode
of dress, for their employment, or for exhibiting "immoral" or "un-Islamic"
behavior, but have also encountered difficulties in surviving in Jordan,
particularly those who are single or who are members of non-Islamic minority
groups.[208]
Intellectuals and professionals have increasingly become targets, as well, for
kidnapping and killing. While the motives of their attackers may be mixed,
including common criminality in a highly lawless environment, some perpetrators
have indicated a desire to rid Iraq
of its professional and intellectual class.

Non-Iraqi refugee groups living in Iraq have been particularly vulnerable, and
those who have managed to flee to Jordan
have been isolated in camps in the remotest reaches of Jordan, on or near the border with Iraq.[209]
The two main refugee groups in Iraq
who found themselves in the incongruous position of being both recognized
refugees in Iraq and asylum
seekers in Jordan
are Palestinians and Iranian Kurds. Both groups lived for decades in Iraq
without having integrated into Iraqi society, and found themselves especially
vulnerable after the fall of Saddam Hussein. At the time of the Human Rights
Watch visit, neither group had found another welcoming place of refuge. Some
Palestinians and Iranian Kurds who arrived at the beginning of the war in April
2003 managed to enter the country, only to be kept in closed camps in a remote,
desert area, where hundreds remain three years later. Later arrivals were not
permitted to enter Jordan
and found themselves stranded at even more inhospitable locations in the no
man's land between Iraq and Jordan
or on the Iraqi side of the border.[210]

Human Rights Watch does not intend the following listing of
particularly vulnerable groups of de facto refugees encountered in Jordan
to be exhaustive. A more comprehensive accounting of groups facing persecution
in Iraq
can be found in an October 2005 Human Rights Watch report, A Face and a Name: Civilian Victims of Insurgent Groups in Iraq.[211]
But even that 140-page report was limited to victims of insurgent groups,
defined as armed opposition groups to the U.S.-led military coalition, the
Multi-National Force in Iraq (MNFI), and to the current Iraqi government. The
report, therefore, did not include victims of Shi`a militia, such as the
al-Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, who have perpetrated violence against
Sunnis, persons associated with the Ba`th Party or the former government,
Palestinians, and other minorities. It also did not include victims of the
MNFI, which has carried out tens of thousands of violent raids and full-scale
attacks on at least four cities-Falluja (twice), Ramadi, Tal `Afar, and
Najaf-since toppling the Ba`th regime. In fact, de facto refugees in Jordan
have been the victims of a wide array of groups with quite varied motivations. Although
specific categories of vulnerable groups are listed, in fact, there is
considerable overlap, so that the same individual might be a member of multiple
vulnerable groups-such as a Christian intellectual accused of collaborating
with foreign elements because she speaks English.

Alleged Collaborators

Among the most vulnerable individuals in Iraq are people who insurgents
believe are working on behalf of the MNFI, the Iraqi government, foreign
governments, and even nongovernmental organizations and the media. An Iraqi
Christian told Human Rights Watch, "If you work in the government, they say you
are an agent of the Americans. If you work with the Americans, they say you are
a traitor."[212]
A former Iraqi general, who joined the insurgency, said, "Every Iraqi or
foreigner who works with the coalition is a target. Ministries, mercenaries,
translators, businessmen, cooks or maids; it doesn't matter the degree of
collaboration. To sign a contract with the occupier is to sign your death
warrant."[213]

In June 2006, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sent a cable to
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice that painted a dismal picture of life for
Iraqi employees of the U.S.
embassy in Baghdad.[214]
It told both of a general deterioration of safety and quality of life, as well
as an increase in sectarian violence and threat. The Iraqi embassy workers'
greatest fear, however, was that they would become known as employees of the U.S.
embassy. The cable said that one employee requested press credentials after
guards at the Green Zone checkpoint held up her embassy badge and loudly said,
"Embassy." Ambassador Khalilzad said, "Such information is a death sentence if
heard by the wrong people."[215]

An Orthodox Christian who worked as an interpreter and as a
handyman for the U.S.
military at the Falcon base near the Dura neighborhood in south Baghdad told Human Rights
Watch that he kept his employment secret until September 10, 2004, when a car
followed him as he left the base. The car pulled alongside him, and its driver
and another passenger started shooting at him. 20 rounds hit his car, and he
was hit in both legs and his abdomen, as well as a grazing wound on his back. He
said that he was too afraid even to stay in the hospital longer than two days,
so he went home to recover. After about half a year, he fled to Jordan
in June 2005. "After the shooting, everyone knew I was working for the
Americans," he said. "I had a six-year-old son, and it became difficult to take
him to school. I had to hide in different homes, like my uncle's or my
father-in-law's. So I decided to come to Jordan to find a better life for my
family."[216]

A Palestinian civil engineer who Human Rights Watch
interviewed in the Trebil camp on the Iraqi side of the Jordanian border had
worked for an American company when he was living in Baghdad. He said that he received threatening
phone calls accusing him of being an American spy. On his way to work one
morning, he was chased by men in a car that had been waiting for him outside
his apartment. It was still dark, and Baghdad
was having one of its power failures, so he was able to hide in the dark, but
he was afraid to return to his home. He stayed in the offices of a company
affiliated with his employer for about a month, and asked whether he might be
able to relocate with his family to live at the BaghdadInternationalAirport. His employer
said that was not possible, and he felt compelled to resign.

He moved his family to a building inhabited entirely by
Palestinians. After the Samarra' bombing, there was a pitched battle at the
building as heavily armed police from the Maghaweer
"Raiders" sought to arrest young men in the building. The engineer
commented, "After the Samarra' events, both sides hate me. One terrorist group
threatens me for working for the Americans. Then the Iraqi National Guard
threatens me for being a terrorist [Palestinian]." The civil engineer left Baghdad on April 1. Sitting
in a cramped tent, he closed the interview saying, "I can never go back to Iraq.
I am hated by both sides."[217]

Former Ba`thists and Their Families

At the other end of the spectrum from alleged collaborators
are people who are persecuted for their alleged connections with the former
regime. While some such Ba`thists were engaged in serious human rights
violations for which they should be held accountable, vigilante attacks only
perpetuate the cycle of abuse, and many with actual or imputed Ba`thist
associations, including the children of Ba`th Party members, have a
well-founded fear of persecution in Iraq.

Human Rights Watch interviewed a former high Ba`thist
official, a retired police official, who may have persecuted others and who
might, therefore, not qualify as a refugee himself. He fled first to Syria, where he was arrested and deported twice,
and from there to Jordan.
He said that his son was kidnapped and killed by the Badr Organization in
November 2005. They came dressed as police officers and told him to go with
them to the police station. "I think he was killed in revenge for me," the
elderly man said. "All the Ba`th Party families have the same problem."[218]

A UNHCR-recognized refugee in Amman, a Shi`a who had been
severely persecuted at the hands of the Ba`thist regime,[219]
told Human Rights Watch that he now fears return to Iraq because of his
family's alleged associations with the same government that persecuted him. "My
brother told me this," he said. "My father's body was found, half decomposed,
after he was missing for 17 days. His hands were bound, and there was a paper
in his pocket saying he was killed for being an agent of the Saddam regime." Men
also came asking for his brother in Hilla, and stole his car. "My brother got
away, but they would have killed him. I have good reason not to go back."[220]

Persecution of Ba`thists does not appear to be limited to
high-level party members and their families. A tailor who is unemployed and
struggling to survive in Amman,
told Human Rights Watch:

My father was an ordinary school teacher who was in the
Ba`th Party. He was murdered three months after April 2003. I have five older
brothers and one younger sister. Our family was wiped out I have asked for the
death certificates of my family who were killed I am very depressed. I am so
depressed that I cannot work I don't have money to renew my residency I have
no future.[221]

Professionals and Intellectuals

Iraqi intellectuals and professionals represent a distinct
segment of de facto refugees in Jordan.
An estimated 40 percent of Iraq's
professional class have left the country since April 2003, an average of 40 to
60 professionals per day.[222]
In March 2006, the Association of University Lecturers in Iraq reported that 182 university
professors had been killed since 2003, and that 331 school teachers were killed
in the first four months of 2006 alone.[223]
UNHCR calls the intimidation and murder of Iraqi intellectuals, professors,
lecturers, and teachers "systematic."[224]

The conflict has arguably been even more devastating for Iraq's
medical professionals. According to the Iraqi Medical Association, at least
2,000 Iraqi physicians have been murdered and 250 kidnapped since the 2003
invasion, and an estimated 12,000 (35 percent) of the 34,000 doctors registered
in Iraq
before 2003 have left the country during the past three years.[225]

A dermatologist who owned a private beauty center in Baghdad (quoted above) fled Iraq in November 2005 "because so
many doctors had been killed." In October 2004, his 16-year-old son was
kidnapped and held for three weeks. "They knew I was a doctor with money," he
said. After paying the equivalent of a US$10,000 ransom, his son was released. Another
son, a three-year-old, was killed during the 2003 U.S.-coalition bombing.[226]
"I was unable to work in the clinic, so I decided to close my clinic and come
here," he said. "I just closed up and came here."[227]

The neurologist from Tal `Afar (also quoted above) is a Sunni.
In March 2005, the Badr Organization put his name on a death list. He told
Human Rights Watch:

Six other doctors and I were on the list. It said we were
terrorists and should be killed. On the list were also lawyers, army officers,
university professors, important tribesmen-about 700 names total from Tal
`Afar. They put the list up on the walls of the city. Some of my friends saw
the names. Policemen and militia people started to ask about us.[228]

The neurologist said that there used to be 34 doctors in his
hospital in Tal `Afar. Now there are only five or six.

Iraqi Christians and Mandaeans

Although Christians and Mandaeans represent small religious
minorities in Iraq, they
appear to represent a disproportionately high fraction of the refugee population
in Jordan.[229]
This could be because as a group they are subject to higher levels of targeted
persecution than Muslims, but also because they turn to UNHCR in Jordan
more frequently than their Muslim compatriots and thus are more visible as
refugees.

At the start of the war, Christians comprised about 3
percent of Iraq's
population, numbering about 800,000 people. They have varied ethnic and
denominational backgrounds, including Chaldean Catholics, Assyrians, Roman and
Syriac Catholics, Greek, Syriac, and Armenian Orthodox, and Anglicans. Most are
of the professional class and are considered to be wealthier than the average
Iraqi.[230]

Christians are linked to American and British forces in
popular perception.[231]
Christians also were dominant in the liquor business during the government of
Saddam Hussein. Following the fall of the Saddam Hussein government, militant
Islamic groups firebombed and attacked many liquor stores and shot the
shopkeepers.[232]
A declaration claiming responsibility for coordinated car bombings at five
churches in Baghdad and Mosul
on Sunday, August 1, 2004, said, "The American forces and their intelligence
systems have found a safe haven and refuge among their brethren the
grandchildren of monkeys and swine in Iraq. The graceful God has enabled
usto aim several blows at their dens, the dens of wickedness, corruption and
Christianizing."[233]

A Chaldean Christian who had lived his entire life in the
Jadida quarter of Baghdad
told Human Rights Watch:

I don't feel comfortable to say what's on my mind. We are
Christians and a little different from the Shi`a. Our women dress differently. We
left because our women couldn't wear normal, Christian clothes any longer. Sorry,
I can't mention this in public, but there are instances where they are trying to
pressure us to change our religion to Islam. I was saved from death twice. They
harass us. I was afraid of everybody; I didn't trust my neighbors. Knives are
everywhere. Three times our house was attacked, and I had to replace the
windows each time. They put an IED [improvised explosive device] near our
house, and the entire neighborhood was affected. We also had stones thrown at
our house bearing the message: "Change your religion." They come and abduct
people. People sell their homes in secret and leave before the militias know
about it. Otherwise, they come at night and steal the money and kill you if
they know you have the money from selling your house.[234]

There were about 30,000 Mandaeans in Iraq in the Saddam Hussein era, followers of a
religion that regards John the Baptist as its principal prophet, but there may
be as few as 13,000 remaining inside Iraq at the present time.[235]
Some Muslims do not regard Mandaeans as People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab, which includes Jews,
Muslims and Christians), whom Islam protects, and some reports indicate that
Mandaeans have been targeted for forced conversion.[236]
Mandaeans have traditionally worked as jewelers and goldsmiths, making them a
particularly inviting target; because of their lack of traditional tribal or religious
protective shields,[237]
and because their religion espouses a strict pacifism, they can be kidnapped or
robbed with minimal resistance and, because of endemic lawlessness, impunity.[238]

A 50-year-old Mandaean goldsmith interviewed by Human Rights
Watch in Amman
was just such a target.[239]
In May 2005, unknown assailants attacked him next to his gold shop in Baghdad, shot him in the
chest, and kidnapped his brother. "After this, we had strange phone calls from
Islamic groups," he recalled. "They said things like, 'change your religion or
you will be killed.' We sold all our properties and gold in Baghdad. I was told the insecurity would
affect our work, but I never believed they would kidnap us." The family paid a
ransom of US$80,000 to get his brother released. "The situation was very bad
for us," he said. "We had lots of kidnappings and rapes." He recalled ten
Mandaeans he knew who were killed in 2005. He and his brother left for Jordan
in July 2005. Although they entered with only a three-month visa, he is too
afraid to return to the border to renew his visa, and is now living illegally
in Jordan.
Although both brothers are highly skilled goldsmiths, they are unable to work
in Jordan,
as they do not want to work without permits and risk deportation.

Palestinians

Jordan
has historically been among the most receptive countries toward Palestinian
refugees, having granted automatic citizenship to Palestinian refugees on its
territory at the time it claimed sovereignty over the West
Bank (except for about 100,000 who originated from the Gaza
Strip).[240]
New influxes from Iraq,
however, have put Jordan's
historical tolerance toward refugees-and toward Palestinian refugees, in
particular-under severe strain. Jordanian officials insist that Jordan's
treatment of 1.8 million Palestinian refugees fulfills for all time its
international obligations toward Palestinian refugees, and they stressed to
Human Rights Watch they would not admit a single Palestinian refugee from Iraq.[241]

This attitude is most pronounced with regard to Palestinians
attempting to enter Jordan
from Iraq.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime removed Palestinians' primary source
of protection in Iraq and
made them vulnerable to groups that resented their presence, small groups of
Palestinians began trying to enter Jordan. Except for the earliest
arrivals in April 2003, Palestinians have been met with sealed borders and
official refusal to contemplate their entry.

Human Rights Watch visited a group of 234 Palestinian
refugees stranded on the Iraqi side of the Iraq-Jordan border, the bulk of whom
had fled Iraq following reprisal violence directed against Palestinians in the
aftermath of the February bombing of the Shi`a shrine in Samarra'.

The Palestinians talked with Human Rights Watch about their
reasons for leaving Iraq.[242]
Refugees from Baladiyat, a Palestinian housing complex in eastern Baghdad, said that it had
been targeted four times by mortar fire. Other refugees said that they had
received threatening notes telling them to leave. For example, a group calling
itself the Brigades of Judgment Day left a message warning all Palestinians
living in the Duwar al-Shu'un complex in Baghdad
to leave within ten days or "we will eliminate you all."[243]

Refugees also told of friends, relatives, and neighbors who
had been attacked on the street, simply for being Palestinian. One, Samir
Khalid Al-Jayab, was killed the evening of the day of the Samarra' shrine bombing, according to several
of the refugees. He was a handicapped man with a prosthetic leg. Although most
Palestinians from the Baladiyat neighborhood were too afraid to leave their
homes, Khalid Al-Jayab went out to pick up his son from school. He had not
arrived at the school yet when he was accosted by men who slashed him across
the face with a sword or a knife. Then they shot 20 bullets into his body,
according to the refugee account.[244]

Shortly after the completion of the Human Rights Watch
mission, on May 9, Syria
resolved the situation of the Palestinian refugees at the Jordanian border by
admitting them into Syria.
The following day, the Syrian authorities also admitted a group of 35
Palestinians who had fled directly from Baghdad
to the Syrian border. Since then, however, Syria
has also closed its border to Palestinians from Iraq, and as of the time of this
report about 200 Palestinians are stranded in the no-man's land at the
Iraq-Syria border.[245]

In the meantime, more than 30,000 Palestinians remain under
extreme threat in Baghdad
with no clear avenue of escape, nor any country opening its doors to them. Human
Rights Watch attempted to conduct phone interviews with Palestinians in Baghdad, but many were too
fearful to talk. One man who had been arrested and taken to the Iraqi Ministry
of Interior told Human Rights Watch on May 12, 2006, "Things are bad, very bad.
I want to leave to any country where there is some kind of stability. I am
looking for a quick solution. I cannot wait one or two months. Saudi Arabia
is fine. Any place is fine." When Human Rights Watch asked him to provide
details of his arrest, he said, "Please, I am afraid to go outside, I cannot
answer these questions." He then switched to English and said, "I am very
afraid. Do you understand me? Anyone could come to me to wipe me out, anything
could happen to me," before ending the interview.[246]

Palestinians at Al-Ruwaishid Camp

Another group of 148 Palestinian refugees from Iraq lives in the Ruwaishid camp inside Jordan,
some 85 kilometers from the Iraqi border. These refugees fled Iraq at the beginning of the war,
in April 2003, and have been living in tents in a remote, harsh desert
environment for three years.[247]
If a refugee camp were to be plopped down on the surface of the moon, it would
look like al-Ruwaishid. It is a closed camp in a remote, desert location
surrounded on all sides as far as one can see by a surface of rocks. There is
virtually no rainfall in the area, which contributes to the camp's desolate,
bleak appearance. Water has to be trucked in, and camp residents complain that
the drinking water is bad.

Al-Ruwaishid is guarded by the Badiya, Jordan's
border police, who control entry and exit. When residents need to leave the
camp for a hospital stay in Amman,
Badiya guards accompany them the
entire time, and are posted in their hospital rooms. The local NGO that manages
the camp, the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organization (JHCO), organizes a
daily shuttle bus to take camp residents to the Ruwaishid town market. Camp
residents said they have had no problem with local Jordanians. Relations
between the camp residents and the Badiya
guards, however, remain tense.

The refugees told Human Rights Watch that they felt safe,
but complained about the lack of animal protein, the poor quality of the water
(which is trucked in), poor health care, especially for serious, chronic diseases,
the lack of job opportunities, the lack of higher educational opportunities,
and that they often felt like prisoners. The desert environment is the backdrop
to many of their complaints: people unable to sleep because the tents are so
hot, no gardens or other vegetation, and a general malaise and sense that three
years of their lives have been wasted in the desert. The refugees also said
that that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) had left the camp after
putting up a school tent and providing a few school supplies, and that their
children were not receiving an adequate education.

UNICEF-Amman informed Human Rights Watch that it initially
set up the school to teach primary-school children basic literacy and
arithmetic skills with teachers from the Ministry of Education, and that UNICEF
provided tents, textbooks and other educational materials, teacher training,
and incentives for the teachers. Subsequently, UNICEF said, teaching and
administrative responsibilities were handed over to the refugees. UNICEF-Amman
told Human Rights Watch, "UNICEF will continue to support the educational
programme with CARE and UNHCR as the on-the-ground supervisors of the school."[248]

At the height of the Ruwaishid refugee population in 2003,
there were about 1,500 Palestinians living there. A royal decree allowed men
with Jordanian wives to go to Amman
(but did not authorize them to work).[249]
Many others returned voluntarily to Iraq, spurred by one-time UNHCR
assistance of $800, which decreased by $100 for every month they stayed on in
the camp.[250]

From 2003 until the time of the Human Rights Watch mission,
only five Palestinian families had been resettled (to New Zealand). A major obstacle to
the resettlement of Palestinians has been the objection of the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) to any durable solution that does not involve return to Palestine. Human Rights
Watch learned as this paper was being written, however, that Canada had accepted 46 of the 148
Palestinians remaining at al-Ruwaishid.[251]
At the time of the Human Rights Watch visit, UNHCR had said that it planned to
close al-Ruwaishid by September 2006, though the refugee agency also said that
it did not expect all the remaining residents to be resettled, leaving
undecided what will happen to the residual camp population. On August 25, 2006,
UNHCR announced that it would delay the closure of al-Ruwaishid camp until the
end of the year, as they were still seeking resettlement locations for 337
refugees remaining in the camp, including the remaining Palestinians.[252]

Iranian Kurds

The Iranian Kurdish refugees who have fled toward Jordan
are in two distinct groups. A group of 313 resides at al-Ruwaishid camp inside Jordan,
after the authorities in 2005 closed al-Karama camp in the no man's land (NML),
the strip between the Jordanian and Iraqi checkpoints that one must pass in
order to cross the border, and relocated them to al-Ruwaishid. Another group of
192 is living just inside the NML, very close to the Iraqi checkpoint.[253]
Although their origins are the same, their future is likely to be quite
different.

Both groups originally fled from Iran
to Iraq at the beginning of
the Iran-Iraq War in the early 1980s and were among the 13,000 refugees living
in the Tash camp on the outskirts of al-Ramadi in Iraq's Anbar Governorate for more
than 20 years. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, armed gangs threatened them
and many fled for Jordan,
while others went to northern Iraq.[254]

The Iranian Kurds in al-Ruwaishid live in the same
conditions as the Palestinian refugees living there. Although the two groups
have self segregated, there did not appear to be any particular tension between
them. A Swedish government mission in April 2006 visited the Iranian Kurds at
al-Ruwaishid to conduct resettlement interviews.[255]

The situation is much different for the Iranian Kurds at the
no man's land. Unlike the Iranian Kurds in al-Ruwaishid who arrived at the
beginning of the war, the group at the NML came later, around January 2005, by
which time Jordan
had closed its border to them.[256]
UNHCR does not consider them for third-country resettlement because it believes
they have an alternative durable solution in northern Iraq and do not need to be
resettled outside the region. Where they are living in the NML (on the Iraqi
side) is largely inaccessible to UNHCR-Amman. Because both Iraq and Jordan consider the NML outside of
their territory, the NML is neither safe nor accessible for humanitarian aid. UNHCR
has told the Iranian Kurdish refugees in the NML that their only "choice" is to
go to northern Iraq where
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has offered to provide camps for them
to live in and ultimately to integrate them into Kurdistan.
UNHCR believes that this is a reasonable durable solution on their behalf.[257]

The leaders of the Iranian Kurds in the NML are adamantly
opposed to this solution.[258]
They argue that agents of the Iranian Islamic Republic are active in northern Iraq
and that they would not be safe there. Also, some of the NML residents did not
come directly to Jordan
from al-Tash. They first went to northern Iraq but left because they found
living conditions there, including their personal safety, unacceptable.

The refugees were vague about recent specific threats or
acts by Iranian agents in northern Iraq
and appeared somewhat reluctant to criticize the Kurdish authorities in
northern Iraq
outright. However, those who went from al-Tash to northern Iraq before coming to the NML had
bitter memories of their time there. One of the Iranian Kurds who had lived for
a year in a camp called Mujamma' Sherwan near Diyala in northern Iraq
said:

In northern Iraq
it is so cold, but it was too much for the Kurdish authorities to give us water
to drink or oil to keep us warm. The neighboring villagers did not help us. You
might think that because we are Kurds they would welcome us, but I swear to God
in the whole time we were in Kurdistan not one person said, "Welcome to Kurdistan." They had nothing to do with us. These
residential units were built on private lands, so the owner of these residential
units would come to us and say"You must leave." We talked with the officers
responsible for Diyala, and their response was clear and frank. They said we
must join the PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan-one of the two major Kurdish
political parties in northern Iraq]
How could we leave the Democratic Party to join the PUK in exchange for water
and electricity?[259]

UNHCR responds that thousands of Iranian Kurds from al-Tash
have already gone to northern Iraq
and have not reported significant problems there.[260]
The Iranian Kurds see that UNHCR is promoting the resettlement of their
compatriots in al-Ruwaishid camp, who they knew from years together in al-Tash
camp in Iraq,
and that it, in fact, previously organized the resettlement of 387 Iranian Kurds
from the NML; they wonder why they are not treated the same way.[261]
UNHCR says that the situation has changed because the KRG has agreed to take
the Iranian Kurds and to grant them citizenship.[262]
The KRG's authority to grant Iraqi citizenship is questionable, however.

On April 21, 2006, Human Rights Watch visited the Kawa camp
in the Qoshtapa area of northern Iraq,
the site where the Iranian Kurds from the NML would be accommodated if they
agree to go to northern Iraq.
At the time of the Human Rights Watch visit, 205 families (1,261 individuals)
were living in the camp. The Kawa camp is administered by UNHCR, which provides
tents, a clinic, and a school. Although the camp is guarded by Kurdish police
from the Ministry of Interior, the Iranian Kurdish refugees are free to come
and go. The KRG has agreed to provide every family with a 200 square meter plot
of land in the Qoshtapa area in which to build a house. Contingent on UNHCR
funding, the authorities are also planning to build a permanent school,
hospital, and other amenities. While camp residents had their share of
complaints, particularly the lack of means for gaining livelihoods, and
expressed their preference to be resettled outside the region, they
acknowledged that they were "100 percent more safe" than at the Tash camp,
outside Ramadi, where they had been living previously.[263]

While, on its face, there is no reason to question the
goodwill of the KRG to provide what appears to be a durable solution for the
Iranian Kurdish refugees, it is very hard for anyone from the outside to
understand fully the dynamics, the relationships, and the possible lurking
dangers that could compromise the ability of this group of Iranian Kurds to
integrate locally in northern Iraq. Therefore, a more creative approach might
be in order.

The model for such an approach could be the Resettlement
Opportunities for Vietnamese Returnees (ROVR) program that established
eligibility for U.S.
resettlement for Vietnamese who agreed to repatriate voluntarily from camps in
southeast Asia where they had been rejected for refugee status.[264]
UNHCR could broker a similar arrangement whereby Sweden, New Zealand, and
Ireland (the three countries that have resettled the bulk of the Iranian
Kurdish refugees from al-Ruwaishid) would agree that they would consider for
resettlement any of the 192 Iranian Kurds who voluntarily move to northern Iraq
(not their country of origin) if they can show ongoing protection needs after
moving to northern Iraq, demonstrate meaningful barriers to local integration,
or establish family links to Sweden, New Zealand, or Ireland. Such a program
would require the cooperation of the KRG, and, if necessary for transit
purposes, Jordan, Syria, or Turkey.

VIII. The Response of Other Countries to Iraqis
Fleeing War and Persecution

Unlike other countries in the region, Jordan has few natural resources. It
has no oil and scarce water. Despite this, Jordan has been remarkably open to
people from the region fleeing persecution, first Palestinians, now Iraqis. Although
Jordan's historical generosity is now undergoing a severe challenge and its
attitude appears to be hardening, it still fares well relative to most of its
neighbors as one of the more tolerant countries in the region toward refugees. "The
silent treatment" toward de facto Iraqi refugees extends throughout the region
and beyond.

The Response of Syria

Jordan is
not the only one of Iraq's
neighbors to face the challenge of Iraqis seeking refuge from war and
persecution. Syria, in
particular, has confronted a comparable number of Iraqis whose circumstances to
a large degree correspond to those of Iraqis in Jordan.

In March 2006, UNHCR published a joint study with UNICEF and
the World Food Program assessing the situation of Iraqi refugees in Syria.
It estimated the number of Iraqi nationals in Syria
at 450,000, and said that the large number reflected Syria's "tolerance and generosity."[265]
The report said that Syria
was the only country in the region that implemented the temporary protection
regime (TPR) without restriction; it now appears, however, that Syria
no longer recognizes the TPR. It noted that in 2003 and 2004, Iraqi children in
Syria
had free access to public hospitals and schools. The report observed, however,
a hardening in Syrian attitudes and policies in 2005. In his forward to the
report, the UNHCR Representative in Syria wrote:

[T]he past year has witnessed a change in Syria's policy towards Iraqis. Hence,
the TP regime has been replaced by the implementation of increasingly
restrictive national immigration rules. Access to public hospitals has also
become more restrictive. This has created difficulties for an increasing number
of Iraqis, some of whom have started to leave the region seeking asylum
elsewhere.[266]

As in Jordan,
UNHCR has registered only a small fraction of the Iraqis living in Syria.
UNHCR-Damascus has registered 30,832 Iraqi asylum seekers, as of July 10, 2006,
and has recognized only 1,336 as refugees.[267]

The joint UN report on Iraqis in Syria
noted many of the same problems that face Iraqis in Jordan. It found, for example, that
Iraqis generally do not have work permits in Syria, and that the majority are
unemployed. The report said that "at least 1,500 families are facing very
difficult conditions created by a combination of factors, including poverty,
expired legal documents and trauma situations. Higher levels of malnutrition,
low enrolment levels, child labour and child prostitution are more likely to be
higher among these families."[268]

The report, based on household surveys, focus group
discussions, and other interviews, found that as many as 30 percent of Iraqi
children between the ages of six and 11 are not enrolled in school.[269]

The UN assessment of Iraqi refugees in Syria noted that most Iraqis in Syria
have exceeded their visa stays, but that the Syrian authorities have generally
tolerated Iraqi overstayers, although some random inspections were noted. The
report observed, "Most Iraqi refugees believe that the TP Regime is useless
since cases of bribery and coercive deportation were reported despite the
submission of the TP letter."[270]

The lack of protection afforded by a UNHCR temporary
protection letter in Syria
parallels the ineffectiveness of UNHCR protection in Jordan:

In reality, the PL [Protection Letter] did not offer the
refugees needed protection. As for issues related to residence permits in Syria,
the PL is no longer acknowledged by the Syrian authorities since it is only a
Temporary Protection letter and does not guarantee permanent protection. In
fact, the PL stipulates that the holder should abide by the laws and
regulations of the country. As soon as the residence permit is expired, the
holder is considered in violation of these laws and regulations.[271]

Human Rights Watch interviewed a former Ba`thist official in
Amman who had been deported twice from Syria to Iraq (also quoted above in Former Ba`thists and Their Families). He
confirmed that Syrian officials did not honor the UNHCR temporary protection
letter. He said:

It was September 12, 2004 when the Mukhabarat [Intelligence] came for me It was less than one month
after I had gone to UNHCR... They investigated me and discovered I was
illegally in Syria.
I showed them my temporary protection paper from UNHCR. I was detained for 23
days in the Mukhabarat's Palestine Branch
basement. I was kept in a room of 1.8 meters by 2.5 meters. We were kept with
24 prisoners, Iraqis, Syrians, Kurds, and Saudis. We had to sleep head to toe,
on our sides, because the room was so small. There was no health care. The food
they brought was dirty, no plate or spoon When they released us, they put us
at the border, handcuffed. Then they put us back inside Iraq. They kept me because I had
overstayed my residence permit, not because I had a fake passport or was a
member of the Ba`th-they did not know this. The 23 days were my sentence, but I
didn't go to any court.[272]

The Response of Lebanon

An estimated 20,000 Iraqis are living in Lebanon, according to a Danish Refugee Council
(DRC) survey of Iraqis in Lebanon,
published in July 2005.[273]
The survey found that the numbers of Iraqis are increasing in Lebanon, particularly among the
Christian minority.

The survey, conducted on behalf of UNHCR, found that Iraqis
in Lebanon
ranked their "lack of documentation, and the subsequent fear of moving around,
of being arrested and deported" as their biggest problem.[274]
It found 100 percent of the 590 Iraqi households surveyed were living in Lebanon
illegally.[275]Lebanon
makes no allowance for refugees, nor does it provide any other basis for
regularizing status.[276]

Like Jordan,
Lebanon
is not a party to the Refugee Convention and has no refugee law. Also like Jordan,
it hosts a large population of Palestinian refugees, and declines to consider
granting asylum to other refugees.[277]
As in Jordan,
UNHCR operates on the margins. The government does not grant residence permits
or work authorization to refugees recognized by UNHCR. Lebanon requires advance visas for all Iraqis
arriving overland, but will issue a tourist visa for Iraqis arriving with valid
passports at the RaficHaririInternationalAirport if they are
holding $2,000 cash, a hotel booking, and a return ticket.[278]

Since April 2003, UNHCR has tried to maintain the temporary
protection regime in Lebanon,
as in Jordan and Syria.
Because Lebanon does not recognize
the TPR, there is little indication that the TPR has enhanced protection for
refugees in Lebanon
in any way. At the same time, UNHCR cites the TPR as its reason for not
recognizing or processing more refugees for resettlement. Opportunities for third
country resettlement have diminished considerably under the TPR.[279]
Also, UNHCR's recognition rate for refugees dropped from 35.5 percent for
refugees who arrived before 2001 to 18 percent for those who arrived in 2001. In
both 2002 and 2003, the recognition rate fell to close to zero.[280]
UNHCR-Beirut did not recognize a single case in 2004 or 2005.[281]
As of July 2006, there were 2,173 persons registered as asylum seekers and 568
recognized as refugees in Lebanon.[282]

The survey showed pervasive fear among the Iraqis in Lebanon,
a fear that ironically seemed to increase for those recognized as refugees. "A
majority of Iraqis do not feel safe in their country of asylum," said the
report, "whilst those who are recognized as refugees feel even more unsafe than
the rest of the population, and are not protected against refoulement." [283]
Some 60 percent of Iraqi respondents (and 76 percent of recognized refugees)
rated security in Lebanon
as bad or very bad.[284]
Many Iraqis surveyed in the report said that Lebanese police had arrested and
detained them.[285]
Others cited discrimination in the work place as a problem.[286]

The DRC found a host of other social, economic, and health
problems. Among the most troubling findings is that more than half of the Iraqi
households surveyed do not send any of their children to school.[287]

According to UNHCR-Beirut, "the vast majority" of Iraqis who
are detained in Lebanon
for illegal entry or stay opt for "voluntary repatriation" as an alternative to
prolonged detention, since "no valid options [are] presented to the detainees."[288]
UNHCR declines to facilitate such returns. International Organization for
Migration officials responsible for Iraq
told Human Rights Watch that it has facilitated about 1,000 such "voluntary
returns" from Lebanon to Iraq.[289]
UNHCR said that, to its knowledge, Lebanese authorities returned 517 Iraqi
detainees to Iraq
in 2005, and 265 in the first six months of 2006.[290]

The Response of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

Relatively few Iraqis seek asylum in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Neither country is a
party to the Refugee Convention, neither has a refugee law, and both maintain
strict immigration policies.[291]
Kuwait has its own unique history with Iraq, having been invaded and occupied
by Iraqi forces for seven months in 1990-1991, and having been threatened with
Iraqi invasion in 1961 and several times thereafter. After the U.S.-led
coalition expelled the Iraqi troops from Kuwait
in 1991, Kuwait also
expelled large numbers of Iraqi residents, bidun
(stateless Arabs) and Palestinians to Iraq, accusing them of having been
traitors during the Iraqi occupation.[292]

In the immediate aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, about
90,000 Iraqis arrived in Saudi
Arabia with coalition forces. Within a short
time, their numbers decreased to 33,000. Saudi Arabia held them in two
closed camps, al-Artiwiya and Rafha under very harsh conditions where the
refugees were sometimes severely mistreated.[293]
The Saudi authorities closed al-Artiwiya in 1992 and consolidated the remaining
refugees into one camp, Rafha.[294]
Over the years, the refugees were either resettled outside the region or
repatriated. By the end of 1997, when a resettlement program that had begun in
1992 ended, 24,264 refugees were resettled from Rafha.[295]
Between 1992 and 1997, another 3,000 Iraqi refugees voluntarily repatriated
from Rafha.[296]
At the start of the 2003 war, there were about 5,200 Iraqi refugees in Rafha.[297]
A year later, only 483 remained; the rest had voluntarily repatriated.[298]
As of June 2006, only 137 Iraqi refugees remained in the Rafha camp, after more
than 100 Iraqi refugees left the camp to become urban refugees in Saudi Arabia.[299]
UNHCR has registered no other Iraqi refugees or asylum seekers in Saudi Arabia.[300]

While no official figures exist for the number of Iraqis
currently living in Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia, estimates
in Kuwait range from 10,000
to 13,000, and neither official figures nor credible estimates exist for the
number of Iraqis in Saudi
Arabia. UNHCR-Kuwait has registered 427
Iraqis as asylum seekers and has recognized 18 Iraqis as refugees. There was no
refugee resettlement from Kuwait
in 2003, 2004 or 2005, and with the exception of a single refugee resettled
from Saudi Arabia in 2003,
it did not facilitate the resettlement of any other Iraqi refugees from Saudi Arabia
for the same three-year period of the war and its ongoing violent aftermath.[301]

At the beginning of the war, Kuwait announced that it would not
permit Iraqis to enter, but would instead hold them in a 15-kilometer-wide
demilitarized strip on the Iraqi side of the border, where it would provide
humanitarian assistance.[302]
Upon the opening of a humanitarian operation center (HOC) in March 2003, former
Kuwaiti Chief of Staff Lt. General Ali al-Moman, the nominal chairman of the
HOC, advised Iraqis to "stay where they are."[303]
At the time, Saudi Arabia
deployed 3,000 troops to Kuwait,
and the head of Saudi Arabia's
border guard announced that Saudi security forces were using state-of-the art
technology to detect people crossing the border.[304]
In August 2006, Saudi authorities announced their intention to build a
sophisticated border fence on its border with Iraq at a cost of up to $7 billion.[305]

The Response of Iran

Although the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran says
that 54,000 Iraqi refugees reside in the country, the only Iraqi refugees who
it permitted to re-register in 2001 and 2002 to maintain their refugee status
in the country (at which point, it closed further registration) were refugees
who had previously registered. This means that the count of officially recognized
Iraqi refugees includes none who may have sought asylum in Iran anytime since 2001, which, of
course, includes any who might have fled the April 2003 war or its aftermath. UNHCR
says that "there are no reliable figures on the number of Iraqis remaining in
the country."[306]

The Iranian government does not honor UNHCR's recognition of
refugees under its mandate. Although Iran is a party to the Refugee
Convention and has established a ministerial-level eligibility committee to
determine refugee claims, no information about the Iranian RSD procedure is
publicly known.

Before the war, Ahmad Hosseini, Iran's advisor to the
minister and director general of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants'
Affairs, announced, "In the event of an American attack against Iraq, we will
not authorize any Iraqi refugee to enter Iranian territory."[307]Iran
did pre-position relief supplies to accommodate potential Iraqi displaced
peoples congregating on its western and southwestern borders.[308]
As the war grew closer, Iran
sent out mixed signals indicating that it might open its borders to Iraqis
whose "livesare really in danger."[309]
On the eve of the war, the government announced its policy was still a "closed
door" for Iraqi refugees, but that it would make exceptions for people whose
"lives are on the line."[310]
As it turned out, the anticipated flow did not occur, and not a single Iraqi
refugee was recorded as having sought asylum in Iran.[311]
To the contrary, from 2003 through 2005, more than 100,000 Iraqi refugees
returned to Iraq from Iran.[312]

The Response of Turkey

Although Turkey
is a party to the Refugee Convention and Protocol, it maintains a geographical
limitation that only recognizes refugees of European origin. It has, therefore,
never recognized Iraqi refugees on its territory. Nevertheless, Turkey
has been a reluctant host to mass influxes of Iraqi refugees. Most notably in
spring 1991, in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, 450,000 Iraqis, mostly
Kurds, fled to its border, at which time Turkey tried to prevent them from
entering.[313]
That episode resulted in the creation of a "safe area" in northern Iraq
and the return of those refugees to what became the Kurdish autonomous zone
from 1991 to 2003, which today comprises the area controlled by the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG).

As war approached in 2003, UNHCR-Ankara prepared for a large
influx of refugees in Turkey
and spoke about Turkish plans to set up five camps inside Turkey and 13 camps in northern Iraq
to accommodate more than 250,000 anticipated refugees.[314]
However, press reports of the time quoted Turkish officials about the measures
they were taking to prevent a refugee influx. Turkish Prime Minister Recap
Tayyip Erdogan announced on a national television broadcast on the eve of the
war that he had made military arrangements with the United States for "a limited belt
along the border aimed at stopping a possible influx of refugeesand prevent
threats to our security."[315]

The expected mass influx did not occur, largely because the
Iraqi Kurds in 2003 were no longer in flight. As war and generalized violence
continued for the next several years, as well as continuing conflict with
Turkish Kurds in the frontier region, Turkey
kept a tight grip on its border with Iraq. A UNHCR planning document
written in 2003 for the 2004 year noted that "tension and war in Iraq
has led to particularly stringent control measures in the immediate border
area."[316]
Iraqis are not allowed to enter Turkey
overland without a visa obtained in advance from a Turkish embassy or consulate
abroad, although those arriving by air may obtain a visa at the airport.[317]

As of June 30, 2006, UNHCR-Ankara had registered 2,404
Iraqis as "asylum seekers" in Turkey,
although it was doing no further processing of their cases.[318]
As with other UNHCR offices in the region, UNHCR-Ankara has placed a freeze on
Iraqi refugee status determinations as part of the refugee agency's regional
temporary protection regime. Turkish law does not incorporate the TPR, but the
Turkish government has also agreed not to deport Iraqis for the present time.

Human Rights Watch interviewed a European diplomat in Amman who had just returned from Turkey and said that the presence of Iraqi
nationals in Turkey
is "very limited." The diplomat said that about 80 percent of UNHCR's Iraqi caseload
in Turkey
is made up of Christians. He suggested that there are larger numbers of Iraqi
Turkmen (a Turkic ethnic group most prominently found in the area of Kirkuk) who "don't have any problems and have integrated
into Turkey."[319]

Another 108 UNHCR-recognized Iraqi refugees reside in Turkey,
most of whom were recognized as refugees before April 2003, and have not found
a third country willing to resettle them. More than 1,000 Iranian refugees who
crossed into Turkey from
northern Iraq
are also living in the country.[320]
The Turkish government requires UNHCR-registered asylum seekers and refugees to
reside in "satellite cities" in central Anatolia.
This is quite isolating, particularly for Christians and other religious
minorities, who often move to Istanbul.
By circumventing the government's residency requirements, these Iraqis put
themselves in an irregular situation with the authorities. Very few of the
refugees and asylum seekers meet the government's strict language and skills
requirements to receive work permits, and UNHCR's ability to provide
humanitarian assistance for them is limited. UNHCR's operational plan for 2006
said, "With no possibility for safe return to Iraq,
little prospect for resettlement and only temporary asylum in Turkey, the Iraqi refugees and
asylum-seekers and Iranian refugees ex-Iraq are effectively stranded. They are
growing increasingly frustrated and ever more dependent on UNHCR."[321]

The Response of Yemen and Egypt

Although neither Yemen
nor Egypt share a border
with Iraq, both have been
host to large numbers of Iraqi nationals who appear to have left Iraq for the same reasons as Iraqis in Jordan
and other bordering countries. As with Iraq's
other neighbors, Yemen and Egypt,
at best, ignore the presence of Iraqis. In fact, reliable estimates of their
numbers are particularly hard to find.

UNHCR estimated that 100,000 Iraqis were living in Yemen in 2004,[322]
but declined to estimate the numbers in 2006, saying that because there has
been active movement of Iraqis in and out of Yemen, "it is extremely difficult
to estimate their current numbers."[323]
As elsewhere in the region, the number approaching UNHCR for registration is
relatively small. UNHCR has registered 1,126 Iraqis, but treats them according
to the temporary protection scheme, and is not screening Iraqis for refugee
status or processing them for resettlement.[324]

Although Yemen
did admit Iraqis without an advance visa in 2003, Yemen changed this policy in 2004
and imposed a visa requirement on Iraqi nationals, purportedly as an anti-trafficking-in-women
measure.[325]

Human Rights Watch was not able to find reliable estimates
of the number of Iraqi nationals living in Egypt, but their numbers appear to
be rising. Sources in Egypt
who did not want to be identified told Human Rights Watch that the likely range
was 30,000 to 40,000. In July 2006, the chief of mission for IOM in Iraq said, "We don't have exact figures, but we
see in Jordan, Syria, and now even in Egypt and neighboring countries,
where the numbers of Iraqis again slowly and steadily keep increasing."[326]
The number of Iraqis registered with UNHCR-Cairo rose from 57 at the end of
2002 to 955 after the first six months of 2006. As of July 8, 2006, UNHCR had
registered 1,012 Iraqis for temporary protection in Egypt. Another 77 Iraqis were
recognized refugees, overwhelmingly persons whose cases were decided before
April 2003.[327]
Iraqis who UNHCR-Cairo registers for temporary protection are issued
three-month, renewable residency permits.[328]

The Response of the United States, United Kingdom and Other
Resettlement and Donor Countries outside the Region

Donor and resettlement governments outside the region
largely ignore the Iraqi refugee problem in Jordan
(and Syria and Lebanon).
The United States and the United Kingdom have taken little note of the
presence of Iraqi refugees in Jordan
and minimal action to promote temporary asylum in Jordan. Yet, those two states are
the most heavily committed militarily in Iraq and bear a responsibility to
acknowledge-and to respond to-the human consequences in neighboring states of
Iraq's current upheaval.

Since the start of the war in 2003, Australia, New
Zealand, Ireland,
Sweden and Canada have modestly helped to relieve Jordan of some of its burden by resettling what
still are small numbers of refugees from Jordan.[329]
The United States
suspended admission of Iraqi refugees from the time of the September 11, 2001,
attacks until April 13, 2005, when it announced that it would normalize
processing of Iraqi resettlement cases.[330]
Despite the formal resumption of Iraqi refugee processing, only two Iraqi cases
(12 persons) referred by UNHCR departed for the United States in 2005.[331]
The United States
admitted another six Iraqis on family reunification grounds without a UNHCR
referral in 2005.[332]
In 2006, the U.S. State Department admitted 43 Iraqis refugees from Jordan.[333]
From the beginning of the war in April 2003 through May 2006, UNHCR referred no
Iraqi refugee cases for resettlement in the United Kingdom. Six Iraqi family
reunification cases departed from Jordan
to the United Kingdom
without a UNHCR referral.[334]

Although the United States
is a major donor to Jordan,
a relatively small portion of its Jordan foreign aid package is
devoted to refugees. The United Kingdom
and other European donors appear to have paid less attention to refugee needs
in Jordan.
Although the U.S.
government's bilateral foreign aid to Jordan
has averaged US$736 million per year since fiscal year 2003,[335]
it only earmarked US$447,845 in 2005 for Iraqi refugees in Jordan in its multilateral donation
to UNHCR.[336]
In 2006, the United States
did contribute US$1.4 million for ICMC's humanitarian assistance projects in Jordan,
including outreach to refugees.[337]
Neither the United Kingdom
nor the European Commission earmarked any funding for Iraqi refugees in Jordan
in their 2005 contributions to UNHCR.[338]
But donor governments rarely give money without being asked. As long as Jordan
chooses not to ask, the international community is not likely to answer.

Similarly, many member states of the European Union have not
admitted any (or only a token number of) Iraqi refugees from the region. If
only in their own self interest in providing meaningful assistance and
protection in the region so that Iraqis do not migrate irregularly to Europe in
order to seek asylum there, ECHO and European donor countries should also
provide Jordan and other countries that provide temporary protection to Iraqi
refugees, such as Syria, with generous assistance. The observation of the UNHCR
Representative in Syria
about Iraqis moving irregularly from Syria
to Europe would apply equally to the situation of Iraqis in Jordan:

[H]undreds of thousands of Iraqis are no longer interested
in an eventual return to Iraq.
Consequently, a huge secondary movement of Iraqis may take place from Syria towards Western countries and particularly
Europe, being the closest and traditional
region to which Iraqis have fled since the 1991 war. This is a tremendous
challenge which needs urgent attention, proper planning and action from the
international community in order to avoid a new exodus.[339]

The number of Iraqi asylum applications lodged in Europe rose by 26 percent from 2004 to 2005.[340]
In 2005, Iraqis represented the third largest group of asylum seekers in
Europe, trailing only asylum seekers from Serbia
and Montenegro and Russia.[341]
The European countries with the largest number of newly filed Iraqi asylum
claims in 2005 were Sweden
(2,330), Germany (1,895),
the Netherlands (1,620), the
United Kingdom (1,605), Greece (971), and Belgium (903).[342]

The United States
and the United Kingdom have
a particular responsibility to support Jordan. Not only do both countries
have historical ties to Jordan and a foreign policy interest in ensuring that
Jordan is not destabilized by the large number of Iraqi nationals living in the
country unsupported and without legal status, but they also have a moral
imperative to support civilians who have fled dangerous conditions precipitated
in large part by the U.S.-led war effort or who fled Saddam Hussein's regime in
the 1990s but have been unable to return because of dangerous conditions. The United States and the United
Kingdom should provide quick and meaningful support to Jordan,
both financial and technical, but they should also share the responsibility for
providing protection and durable solutions for Iraqi refugees.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom should
institute significant refugee resettlement programs for Iraqi refugees in need
of resettlement, including persecuted religious minorities, members of ethnically
mixed families, and people persecuted or threatened with persecution on account
of their association with the United States or the United Kingdom or with
private American and British organizations. The United States, on a
humanitarian basis (based on past-persecution claims), should admit Iraqi
refugees recognized by UNHCR in Jordan during the Saddam Hussein era who were
not resettled as a result of the U.S. moratorium on resettlement of Iraqi
refugees after September 11, 2001, and who have been living in limbo since that
time.[343]
Aside from humanitarian reasons for resettling this relatively small group, the
stuck "old caseload" has blocked the refugee-processing pipeline, and has been
one of the reasons the United
States has been slow to begin processing
"new caseload" refugees.

In addition to helping to relieve Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and
potentially other countries in the region of the refugee burden through
resettlement, financial support is critical to maintain health and education
standards for the refugees, as well as needs for particularly vulnerable
Iraqis, such as female-headed households, the elderly, torture survivors, the
disabled, and unaccompanied minors. While some governments have contributed
bilaterally and through particular NGOs, such as the U.S. contribution to ICMC and
ECHO's contribution to CARE, most funding is channeled through UNHCR's Global
Appeal, based on standing formulas whereby certain governments agree to
contribute particular percentages of the appeal.[344]

UNHCR in practice bases its operating budget less on the
actual needs on the ground, rather than on anticipated contributions. UNHCR's
operations in Jordan
have been funded during the past three years through its supplementary budget,
a budget mechanism that allows UNHCR to devote additional resources to
emergency situations. However, UNHCR's Executive Committee has set a three-year
limit on supplementary budget funding before an office's operations must revert
to the general budget process. This means that the Iraq
and Jordan
operations at risk of reverting to pre-2003 funding levels. UNHCR has put a
no-growth cap on its general budget, which would mean that UNHCR's budget for Jordan
could, in effect, be cut by one-third. At its 2006 Executive Committee meeting
at which the High Commissioner announced a nine percent decrease in its general
budget for 2007, UNHCR's 2007 budget proposal said that it continued to
anticipate supplementary funding for its Iraq Operation, but did not give a
funding figure. It reported that supplementary funding for the Iraq Operation
decreased from 32 million in 2005 to 28 million in 2006.[345]

The budgets of UNHCR's NGO implementing partners, such as
CARE and MIZAN,[346]
who provide essential services to Iraqi refugees, could take deep cuts. Also,
since most of the locally hired UNHCR staff in Jordan
and the entire UNHCR staff for al-Ruwaishid camp are funded through the
supplementary budget,[347]
a reversion to the general budget process would result in deep cuts in critical
aspects of UNHCR's core operations in Jordan. What funding is available
appears destined for programs inside Iraq,
based, in part, on a faulty assumption that refugee repatriation to Iraq
will be a viable option.

It is essential that donor governments working through
UNHCR's Executive Committee recognize the nature of the refugee emergency in Jordan
and elsewhere in the region. Whether or not Jordan
maintains its "silent treatment," these governments need to recognize that
there is an ever-changing, and growing, emergency in the region involving
refugees who have fled Iraq
and that the numbers and the needs are substantially greater than has
heretofore been acknowledged. Recognizing the nature and scope of the problem
is the first and essential step in addressing and resolving it.

Methodology

Human Rights Watch visited Jordan from April 14 to May 6, 2006,
to research this report. Human Rights Watch spent four days in the border area,
visiting a temporary camp of Palestinian refugees stranded on the Iraqi side of
the border; a camp of Iranian Kurds in the no man's land between the
checkpoints that mark the entry and exit lines of the two countries; and
al-Ruwaishid camp inside Jordan, but in the border region, where
UNHCR-recognized Palestinian and Iranian Kurdish refugees have lived since the
war. Another team of Human Rights Watch researchers simultaneously assessed
conditions in northern Iraq,
including the Kawa camp in Qoshtapa, and contributed to the section of this
report relating to Iranian Kurds.

Human Rights Watch conducted 85 in-depth interviews with
refugees, asylum seekers, and others in refugee-like circumstances who
expressed some level of fear of return to Iraq. These included 43 Iraqi
nationals, 27 Palestinian habitual residents of Iraq, 14 Iranian Kurds, and one
Lebanese national. Interviews were conducted in Amman
(36), Karak (six), the no man's land (nine), the Ruwaishid camp (17) some 85
kilometers inside Jordan,
and the camp for Palestinians across the Iraqi border (16).

Of the 43 Iraqi nationals interviewed, 15 were female and 28
were male. The ethnic/religious breakdown of the Iraqi nationals was: 15
various Christian denominations, nine Shi`a, five Sunni, four unspecified
Muslim, and one Mandaean. A further nine were not asked there religious
affiliation as it had no bearing on their reasons for fleeing Iraq or their situation in Jordan. Iraqi Shi`a and Sunnis are
often reticent about identifying themselves in sectarian terms. Twenty-two of
the 40 Iraqi nationals were from Baghdad,
as were 23 of 27 Palestinians. The plurality of Iraqi nationals interviewed,
14, arrived in Jordan
before 2003. Eleven arrived in 2003 or 2004, 10 in 2005, and three in the first
four months of 2006.

Human Rights Watch also conducted six phone interviews with
Iraqis inside Iraq
as part of this study. Another eight Iraqi refugees in Jordan responded to a questionnaire
concerning their arrests and administrative detention.

While these statistics may not be representative of the make
up of the Iraqi population in Jordan,
they do show that a wide spectrum of Iraqi society is fleeing to Jordan and that Christians constitute a higher
proportion in exile than inside Iraq.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed Iraqi nationals in Jordan
who are neither seeking asylum nor in need of protection, including taxi
drivers, traders, and others who cross frequently between the two countries. In
addition, Human Rights Watch interviewed local and international
nongovernmental organizations, intergovernmental agencies, and diplomats.

Because of their precarious legal status in Jordan and potential for persecution if returned
to Iraq, the names of Iraqi
nationals, Palestinians, and Iranian Kurds interviewed in Jordan are not used in this report.

Acknowledgements

This report was researched and written by Bill Frelick,
director of the Refugee Policy Program at Human Rights Watch. The report was
also researched and edited by Peter Bouckaert, director of the Emergencies
Program, and Christoph Wilcke, researcher in the Middle East Division of Human
Rights Watch. The report was edited by Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the
Middle East Division, Nadim Houry, Middle East researcher, Iain
Levine, director of the Program Office, and Clarisa Bencomo, researcher in the Children's Rights
Division. Aisling Reidy, senior legal advisor, conducted the legal review. John
Emerson designed the map. Research and editorial assistance was provided by
Laura Trice of the Refugee Policy Program. Additional research and editorial
assistance was provided by Jonathan Cohen,
Talia Dubovi, and Caroline Tubbs of the Refugee Policy Program. DarEmar
translated the report into Arabic. Assef Ashraf
and Tarek Radwan of the Middle East Division assisted with Arabic
transliteration. Production assistance was provided by Grace Choi of the
Program Office.

UNHCR staff in Amman
and al-Ruwaishid gave generously of their time, responded candidly to Human
Rights Watch's questions, and offered significant help on logistical matters. Human
Rights Watch gratefully acknowledges the willingness of officials in the
Jordanian Ministry of Interior to meet and answer questions and the permission
it granted to visit the border-area refugee camps. Human Rights Watch also
appreciates the assistance of U.S.
military officers and soldiers in facilitating the visits to the refugee camps
in the no man's land and inside Iraq.

[1]
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status
under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of
Refugees, reedited January 1992, para. 28.

[2]
One consequence of issuing "asylum seeker" cards-rather than "temporary
protection" cards-is that previously rejected asylum seekers are not eligible
for new "asylum seeker" cards despite their need for temporary protection.

[5]
For example, Article 15 of the European Union's Council Directive 2004/83/EC
provides subsidiary protection based, inter alia, on a "serious and individual
threat to a civilian's life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in
situations of international or internal armed conflict." "Council Directive of
29 April 2004 on Minimum Standards for the Qualification and Status of Third
Country Nationals or Stateless Persons as Refugees or as Persons who Otherwise
Need International Protection and the Content of the Protection Granted,"
2004/83/EC, Official Journal L 304/12, April 29, 2004, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2004/l_304/l_30420040930en00120023.pdf
(accessed October 17, 2006). Of more direct relevance to Jordan, UNHCR's
Executive Committee-of which Jordan is a member-issued a Conclusion on the
Provision of International Protection including through Complementary Forms of
Protection in October 2005 that encouraged "the use of complementary forms of
protection for individuals in need of international protection who do not meet
the refugee definition under the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol" and that
states granting complementary protection should ensure "the human rights and
fundamental freedoms of such persons without discrimination." UNHCR Conclusion
No. 103 (LVI), October 7, 2005, http://www.unhcr.org/excom/EXCOM/43576e292.html
(accessed October 17, 2006).

[6]
Exclusion grounds under the Refugee Convention apply to persons for whom there
are serious grounds for considering that they committed a crime against peace,
a war crime, or a crime against humanity; a serious non-political crime outside
the country of refuge; or who have been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes
and principles of the United Nations. Refugee Convention, art. 1.F.

[8]
UNHCR, UNICEF, and WFP, Assessment on the
Situation of Iraqi Refugees in Syria,
Damascus, March
2006.

[9]
UNHCR's Executive Committee adopted Conclusion 103 on the Provision of
International Protection including through Complementary Forms of Protectionat its 56th
Session in October 2005. Jordan
is a member of UNHCR's Executive Committee.

[10]
The U.S. State Department establishes priorities for deciding which few of the
world's refugees are of greatest "special humanitarian concern" to the United States.
The priorities establish the preference order for interviewing refugees for U.S.
resettlement. Priority One involves urgent cases, and usually requires a UNHCR
referral. Priority Two is comprised of identifiable nationality and
sub-nationality groups who can be processed without a UNHCR referral. Other
processing categories relate to the closeness of eligible relatives in the United States
who can petition for family reunification, categories that are currently
limited to specified nationalities. David Martin, The United States Admissions
Program: Reforms for a New Era of Refugee Resettlement (Migration Policy
Institute, 2005), pp. 37-40; see also U.S. Departments of State, Homeland
Security, and Health and Human Services, "Proposed Refugee Admissions for
Fiscal Year 2007: Report to Congress," pp. 8-10.

[11] The U.S. Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants' World Refugee Survey
annually compiles a chart on the Ratio of Refugees to Selected Host Country
Populations. From 1993 until 2003 it listed Jordan as the country with the world's
highest refugee to total population ratio. Jordan lost this distinction in the
2004 and 2005 Surveys when the
editors changed their method of counting refugees (no longer accepting UNRWA's
refugee figures). In 2006, when the World
Refugee Survey counted 450,000 Iraqi refugees, in addition to 158,200
Palestinians, and 1,300 others, Jordan, once again, topped the list of
countries with the highest ratio of refugees to total population. U.S.
Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, "Table 13: Ratios of Refugees to Host
Country Populations," World Refugee
Survey 2006, p. 14 (note that the OccupiedPalestinianTerritories has a higher
ratio, but is not a country). Table available at: http://www.refugees.org/data/wrs/06/docs/ratios_of_refugees_to_host_country_populations.pdf
(accessed June 22, 2006).

[12] The Population Reference Bureau gives Jordan's
population in mid-2005 as 5,795,000.

[13]
Ministry of Interior officials told Human Rights Watch that the number was
about 500,000, but could fluctuate by 100,000 in either direction. UNHCR
officials estimated about 750,000. A recent New
York Times article said, "Iraqi officials and international organizations
put the number of Iraqis in Jordan
at close to a million." Sabrina Tavernise, "As Death Stalks Iraq, Middle-Class Exodus Begins," New York Times, May 19, 2006.

[14]
In 1916, Sharif Husayn, the ruler of Mecca and
head of the Hashemite family, revolted against Ottoman rule, joining forces
with the British against the Ottoman Empire. Husayn's
revolt followed extensive correspondence with British officials, in which the
British encouraged Arab hopes of independence. Following the defeat of the
Ottoman Empire, the British installed 'Abdullah, son of Husayn, to be Amir of
what was then called Transjordan (1923-46). He
then became King of Jordan from 1946 until his assassination in 1951. The
British also installed his brother, Faysal, to be king of Iraq (1921-1933). Husayn himself
ruled over the Hijaz (1916-1924), briefly followed by his son 'Ali (1924-5)
until the Hijaz was incorporated into present-day Saudi Arabia under the rule of 'Abd
al-Aziz (1926-53). See Albert Hourani, A
History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 2002)
at 315-322, 507.

[19]
Because most Iraqi nationals in Jordan
came with valid passports and were inspected, provided visas, and admitted,
Human Rights Watch does not refer to them generally as "undocumented." However,
those who have overstayed their visas (many of whom still carry valid
passports) and/or those without work authorization will be referred to as
residing or working illegally.

[20]
Ingrid McDonald, "The War Next Door," American
Scholar, Vol. 75, No. 2, April 1, 2006.

[24] Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture), adopted
December 10, 1984, G.A. res. 39/46, annex, 39 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 51) at 197,
U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984), entered into force June 26, 1987, art. 3. For a
complete listing of states party to the Convention Against Torture, see http://www.ohchr.org/english/countries/ratification/9.htm
(accessed June 28, 2006).

[25] ExCom membership does not require accession
to the Refugee Convention or Protocol, but requires only a "demonstrated
interest and devotion to the solution of refugee problems" and membership in
the United Nations or its specialized agencies. UNHCR, "How to apply for ExCom
membership," http://www.unhcr.org/excom/418b5ecc4.html
(accessed October 17, 2006). Jordan
joined the ExCom in 2006.

[33]
UNHCR, Handbook on Procedures and
Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967
Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, reedited January 1992, Geneva,
para. 28. See text at footnote 1.

[37]
UNHCR Conclusion 22 (XXXII), "Protection of Asylum-Seekers in Situations of
Large-Scale Influx," October 21, 1981, http://www.unhcr.org/excom/EXCOM/3ae68c6e10.html,
para. II.A. 2. Several international declarations and conventions reiterate
that the principle of nonrefoulement
applies at borders. Article III of the Declaration on Territorial Asylum,
passed unanimously by the UN General Assembly in 1967 declares that no refugee
"shall be subjected to measures such as rejection at the frontier" United
Nations Declaration on Territorial Asylum, December 14, 1967, G.A. res. 2312
(XXII), 22 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 81, U.N. Doc. A/6716 (1967), art. 3,
para. 1. Although the Middle East has no
regional refugee instrument, other world regions have bound themselves to this
principle. In Africa, the 1969 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Refugee
Convention, Article II (3) provides: "No person shall be subjected by a MemberState
to measures such as rejection at the frontier, return or expulsion,
which would compel him to return to or
remain in a territory where his life, physical integrity or liberty
would be threatened" Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee
Problems in Africa,1001 U.N.T.S. 45, entered into force June 20, 1974, art. II,
para.3. In the Cartagena Declaration in
1984, ten Latin American states declared their commitment to "the principle of nonrefoulement (including the
prohibition of rejection at the frontier) as a corner-stone of the
international protection of refugees[that] should be acknowledged and observed
as a rule of jus cogens." Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, November
22, 1984, OAS Doc. OEA/Serv.L/V/II.66/doc.10, rev.1 (1984-85), at section III,
para. 5. (Emphasis added throughout.)

[37]UNHCR Conclusion 22, para. II.A.1.

[38]
Letter of Understanding between the Government of the HashemiteKingdom of Jordan and the Office of UNHCR,
art. 2, paras. 2 and 3, April 15, 2003 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[39]
See UNHCR and Temporary Protection
and Palestinians at al-Ruwaishid Camp
and Iranian Kurds, below.

[41] Human
Rights Watch interview (P-NR-2), Amman,
May 2, 2006. (The coding of interviews in this paper identifies the Human
Rights Watch researcher and the interview subject. The notation "NR" indicates
that the person interviewed was not a refugee.)

[52]
Article 14 (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 says that
"Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from
persecution." Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted December 10, 1948,
G.A. Res. 217A(III), U.N. Doc. A/810 at 71 (1948). The United Nations ExCOM
Conclusion No 82 "reaffirms that the institution of asylum derives directly
from the right to seek and enjoy asylum set out in Article 14(1)." UNHCR
Conclusion 82 (XLVIII), "Safeguarding Asylum," October 17, 1997, http://www.unhcr.org/excom/EXCOM/3ae68c958.html
(accessed October 17, 2006), para. (b). Also, Article 29(h) of Jordan's Law No.
24 of 1973 on Residence and Foreigners' Affairs, as amended by Law No. 23 of
1987 ("Residence and Foreigners' Affairs Law"), recognizes "the right to
political asylum" See http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rsd/rsddocview.html?tbl=RSDLEGAL&id=3ae6b4ed4c
(accessed July 5, 2006). Article 31 (1) of the Refugee Convention bars
contracting states from imposing penalties on refugees "on account of their
illegal entry of presence" who come directly from a territory where there life
or freedom is threatened.

[57]
Human Rights Watch telephone interview (C-25) with deportee in Baghdad,
November 30, 2005, in which the deportee cites an officer in charge of the
Residence and Borders Office at the Nadhala Prison as giving this information. Other
testimonies, including Human Rights Watch interviews (P-12), (C-13), (C-17),
and (B-31), confirm these accounts.

[58]
This was confirmed in "off the record" interviews with a nongovernmental
service provider, Amman, May 4, 2005, and a
diplomatic official, Amman,
May 3, 2006.

[88]
Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Jordan and UNHCR, April
1998, Article 5 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[89]
Human Rights Watch interview with Eva Abu Halawah, executive director of MIZAN,
Law Group for Human Rights, Amman,
May 4, 2006. She said that some recognized refugees remain for seven to nine years
without being resettled. See also UNHCR, Country Operations Plan, Jordan,
Planning Year: 2006, Revision September 2005, part 2.

[95]
The April 15, 2003 Letter of Understanding establishes "a Centre in the border
area[for] Iraqi and other nationals in need of temporary protection" (art. 2,
paras. 2 and 3, letter on file with Human Rights Watch).

[96]
Cited as an April 2005 communication from the Ministry of Interior to UNHCR in
an internal UNHCR memorandum entitled "Iraqis in Jordan," sent to Human Rights Watch
in an email communication on February 7, 2006 (on file with Human Rights
Watch).

[104]
Ibid. UNHCR said that one case (a family of six persons) left for the United Kingdom
on family reunification grounds without the assistance of UNHCR. UNHCR also
indicated that it would submit cases for resettlement to the United Kingdom later in 2006.

[115]
This is a reference to the letter UNHCR sends to the Jordanian authorities,
cited above (footnote 71), on behalf of rejected asylum seekers, in which it
seeks "the cooperation of the Jordanian authoritiesin continuing to extend
flexibility in allowing even rejected asylum seekers to remain in Jordan."
See "Asylum seeker" card holders under UNHCR's temporary protection regime,
above.

[116]
Conclusion on the Provision of International Protection including through
Complementary Forms of Protection, UNHCR Conclusion No. 103 (LVI), October 7,
2005.

[160]
Letter from UNICEF, UNHCR and UNESCO representatives in Jordan to the Minister of Interior,
June 19, 2005 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[161]
Ibid. See also Human Rights Watch interview with Eva Abu Halawah, executive
director of MIZAN, Law Group for Human Rights, Amman, May 4, 2006, and email from
UNICEF-Amman to Human Rights Watch, July 17, 2006.

[162]
Ingrid McDonald, "The War Next Door," American
Scholar, Vol. 72, No. 2, April 1, 2006.

[165]
Email from UNICEF-Amman to Human Rights Watch, July 17, 2006. UNICEF-Amman said
that some school principals unofficially allow Iraqi children to attend their
public schools.

[166]
Various sources interviewed in Amman
informed Human Rights Watch that the Ministry of Interior rather than the
Ministry of Education sets the policy regarding foreign children in Jordanian
schools.

[175]
Ibid. art. 28 (See also, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
General Comment on Education, No. 13: The Right to Education, U.N. Doc.
E/C.12/1999/10, December 8, 1999. Para. 34
states "The Committee takes note of article 2 of the Convention on the Rights
of the Child and article 3 (e) of the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination
in Education and confirms that the principle of non-discrimination extends to
all persons of school age residing in the territory of a State party, including
non-nationals, and irrespective of their legal status." Para.
6 lays out accessibility, availability, and acceptability as the three "interrelated
and essential features" of all forms and levels of education, and in defining
the characteristics of availability states that "education must be accessible
to all, especially the most vulnerable groups, in law and fact, without
discrimination on any of the prohibited grounds.").

[197]
See Human Rights Watch, A Face and a
Name: Civilian Victims of Insurgent Groups in Iraq, vol. 17, no. 9(E),
October 2005. See also UNHCR, Guidelines
Relating to the Eligibility of Iraqi Asylum-Seekers, October 2005 (on file
with Human Rights Watch).

[211]Other relevant Human Rights Watch
reports on Iraq
are: Nowhere to Flee? The Perilous
Situation of Palestinians in Iraq, July 2006; Leadership Failure:
Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd
Airborne Division, September 2005; Getting Away with Torture: Command
Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees, April 2005; The New
Iraq: Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees in Iraqi Custody, January
2005; Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq, August 2004; The Road To Abu Ghraib,
June 2004; Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in
Iraq, December 2003; Hearts and Minds: Post-war Civilian Casualties in
Baghdad by U.S. Forces, October 2003; Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence
and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad, July 2003; Violent Response: the U.S. Army in al-Falluja, June 2003;Basra: Crime and Insecurity
Under British Occupation, June 2003; Flight from Iraq: Attacks on Refugees and Other Foreigners and Their
Treatment in Jordan, May 2003. Available at http://www.hrw.org.

[219]
He had been a driver for a female cousin of Saddam Hussein who was murdered. He
was arrested as a suspect in the plot to assassinate her, and was severely
tortured and imprisoned in horrible conditions. He claimed to Human Rights
Watch that he was innocent of any involvement in the plot. "The headline of my
story is huge," he said, "but my role with Saddam was very small. I was only
the driver of a taxi that belonged to his relative." Human Rights Watch
interview (B-7), Amman,
April 27, 2006.

[223]
Oliver Poole, "Killings Lead to Brain Drain from Iraq," The Daily Telegraph, April 17, 2006. The statistics on killings of
university professors are not entirely consistent. The Iraqi Ministry of Higher
Education reported in August 2006 that 180 professors had been killed since
February and that at least 3,250 had fled the country. See "Iraq: Threatened Teachers Fleeing
Country," IRIN News, August 24, 2006. Available at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55261
(accessed August 29, 2006).

[229]
The Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project estimates that upwards of 120,000 of the
Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, and Turkey are ChaldoAssyrians. See http://aas.net/isdp. Christians represent a
disproportionate percentage of the registered refugee population in Syria-36
percent. See UNHCR, "Background Information on the Situation of Non-Muslim
Religious Minorities in Iraq,"
October 2005, note 11 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

[233]
The declaration was signed by the Committee of Planning and Follow-up in Iraq. The
translation is from the website www.assyrianchristians.com
(accessed February 22, 2005). The declaration is also quoted in Human Rights
Watch, A Face and a Name, pp. 49-50.

[236]
John Bolender, "Worse Off Now Than under Saddam: The Plight of Iraq's
Mandaeans," Weekend Edition, January 8/9, 2005, at http://counterpunch.org/bolender01082005.html.
See also, UNHCR, "Background Information on the Situation of Non-Muslim
Religious Minorities in Iraq,"
pp. 4-5.

[240] According to the Jordanian nationality law of
the year 1954, "Any person with previous Palestinian nationality except the
Jews before the date of May 14, 1948 residing in the Kingdom during the period
from December 20, 1949 and February 16, 1954 is a Jordanian citizen." (From Jordan's
Department of Palestinian Affairs, available at: http://www.dpa.gov.jo/menupalestinian.html).
"All Palestine refugees in Jordan have full Jordanian
citizenship with the exception of about 100,000 refugees originally from the
Gaza Strip who in the 1967 war. Up to 1967 Gaza
was administered by Egypt.
They are eligible for temporary Jordanian passports, which do not entitle them
to full citizenship rights such as the right to vote and employment with the
government." Ayman Halasa, "Refugee protection in Jordan," Local Focus, RSDWatch,
April 20, 2005, available at: http://www.rsdwatch.org/index_files/Page917.htm
(accessed October 17, 2006).

[242] These interviews are the foundation of a
separate Human Rights Watch report, Nowhere
to Flee? The Perilous Situation of Palestinians in Iraq, vol. 18, no. 4(E),
September 2006, http://hrw.org/reports/2006/iraq0706/.

[250]
UNHCR says that the voluntary repatriation encashment program in 2004 was not
meant as an incentive, but rather as a $100 per month per family rent subsidy,
good for the year 2004, which decreased every month it was not used. The
following year, UNHCR changed to a lump sum of $400 per family, regardless of
the month of departure.

[265]
Abdelhamid El Ouali, UNHCR Representative, Damascus,
in the Forward to UNHCR, UNICEF, and WFP, "Assessment on the Situation of Iraqi
Refugees in Syria,"
March 2006, p. 4. UNHCR-Damascus made the same 450,000 estimate in an email to
Human Rights Watch, July 7, 2006.

[279]
UNHCR resettled 330 Iraqis from Lebanon
in 2003, 256 in 2004, and 307 in 2005. Australia took 60 percent of the
refugees during that three-year period. The United States resettled 21 percent.
During the three-year period, the United Kingdom
admitted three Iraqi refugees referred by UNHCR in Lebanon. Email from UNHCR-Beirut to
Human Rights Watch, June 30, 2006.

[280]
DRC and UNHCR, Iraqi Population Survey
Report, p. 32. UNHCR-Beirut recognized one case in 2002 and in 2003.

[291]
See Human Rights Watch, Iraqi Refugees,
Asylum Seekers, and Displaced Persons Current Conditions and Concerns in the
Event of War, February 2003, http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/iraq021203/index.htm.
See also Human Rights Watch, Bad Dreams:
Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia, July 2004; Promises Betrayed: Denial of Rights of
Bidun, Women, and Freedom of Expression, October 2000; The Bedoons of Kuwait: "Citizens without Citizenship," August 1995;
and A Victory Turned Sour: Human Rights
in Kuwait since Liberation," September 1991.

[292]
Following the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait
revoked all temporary residence permits for non-citizens, and government and
vigilante groups commenced rounding up and expelling large numbers. By the end
of 1992, Kuwait
reduced the bidun population from
about 250,000 to about 100,000, and the Palestinian population from 320,000 to
about 20,000. U.S.
Committee for Refugees and Immigrants,
World Refugee Survey 1993, pp. 105-106.

[308]
At the outbreak of the war, Iran
had prepared three camps inside its territory, but did not publicize their
existence. It said it would move those camps into Iraq or the no man's land between
border checkpoints, but UNHCR and others persuaded it not to do so.

[324]
Of the 1,126 total, UNHCR has recognized 277 as refugees, but they were all
recognized prior to April 2003. No Iraqi refugees were resettled from Yemen
in 2003, 2004, or 2005. Three Iraqis were resettled to the Netherlands in 2004. Email from
UNHCR-Yemen to Human Rights Watch, July 16, 2006.

[329]
UNHCR facilitated the resettlement of 436 refugees in 2005, which included 158
"Iraqis," although the Iraqi subtotal also included Palestinians who fled from Iraq,
and 191 Iranians (mostly Kurds). UNHCR did not provide a breakdown by
nationality or country of destination, other than to say that Australia, Canada,
New Zealand, and the United States
were the principal resettlement countries. It reported the following countries
resettling Iranian Kurds and Palestinians from al-Ruwaishid (no Iraqis) in
2005: Ireland: 46 Iranian
Kurds; United Kingdom: 25
Iranian Kurds; New Zealand:
119 Iranian Kurds and 25 Palestinians. In 2004, UNHCR facilitated the
resettlement of 409 Iranian Kurds from al-Ruwaishid, including 387 to Sweden and 22 to Ireland. At the time of the Human
Right Watch mission to Jordan,
Canada, Sweden, and Ireland were in the process of
choosing al-Ruwaishid refugees for resettlement. "Iraqis in Jordan," email
attachment from UNHCR-Amman to Human Rights Watch, February 2, 2006, and email
from UNHCR-Amman to Human Rights Watch, May 24, 2006.

[336]
UNHCR, Global Report 2005, p. 52. The United
States provides funding support to the International
Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) program for extremely vulnerable
individuals in Jordan,
which provides a safety net for many who otherwise would not be able to afford
health care.

[337]
Telephone calls from Jay Zimmerman, U.S. State Department, Bureau of
Population, Refugees, and Migration, to Human Rights Watch, July 19, 2006 and
July 24, 2006. In 2006, the United States
also contributed $1.1 million for ICMC's humanitarian work in Syria and $772, 399 for its work in Lebanon.
It has contributed about the same amount to ICMC for its work in Jordan
in each of the past five years.

[338]
UNHCR, Global Report 2005, p. 51. The European Community Humanitarian Office
(ECHO), the humanitarian arm of the European Community, provides funding for
CARE's work with refugees in Jordan.

[339]
El Ouali in UNHCR, UNICEF, and WFP, "Assessment on the Situation of Iraqi
Refugees in Syria,"
March 2006, p. 5.

[340]
This represents 31 European countries that provided data to UNHCR, including 24
countries of the European Union (France did not report complete
statistics). UNHCR, Asylum Levels and
Trends in Industrialized Countries2005,
March 17, 2006.

[341]
Although the numbers from Serbia/Montenegro and Russia
were larger, both countries showed a decrease in asylum applications lodged in
Europe from 2004 to 2005 (in Russia's
case, a 31 percent decrease), while Iraqis were increasing by 26 percent during
the same period. Iraq's
ranking rose from eighth to third largest number of new applications in Europe from 2004 to 2005. Ibid.

[342]
Ibid.An NGO service provider in
Amman pointed out another impact in Jordan of the increase in Iraqi asylum
seekers in Europe: more single women headed households among de facto refugees
in Jordan, because the male breadwinners are more likely to travel alone to
Europe in the hopes of finding work in order to send remittances back to their
wives and children in Jordan. Human Rights Watch interview with NGO service
provider, Amman,
April 26, 2006.

[343]U.S.
refugee processing of Iraqi refugees was frozen on September 11, 2001, and
remained frozen until April 13, 2005, when the State Department announced that
normal processing would resume. However, Iraqi refugee processing to the United States
in the ten years prior to the 9/11/01 attacks averaged 2,800 per year. Refugee Reports, vol. 25, no. 9,
December 31, 2004, pp. 10-11. Since the resumption of Iraqi refugee processing,
however, the United States
admitted only 198 Iraqi refugees (from all countries) in Fiscal Year 2005. Refugee Reports, vol. 27, no. 1,
February 2006, pp. 16-17. The recommendation that the United States resettle
Iraqi refugees who suffered past persecution "on a humanitarian basis" derives
from 1) the inclusion of "persecution" in the U.S. refugee definition, in
addition to the international refugee definition of a "well-founded fear of
being persecuted," 2) a U.S. federal regulation establishing "humanitarian
asylum" based on past persecution claims, 8 C.F.R. 208.13(b)(1)(ii), and 3)
the specification in U.S. law that overseas refugee resettlement is based on
refugees of "special humanitarian concern" to the United States.

[344]
For example, the United States
contributes 25 to 35 percent of the total appeal for the Middle
East. Phone conversation between State Department official and
Human Rights Watch, July 24, 2006.